>>* 


SOME 
MEMORY  DAYS 


Some  Memory  Days 

of  the  Church 

in  America 


By 

S.  ALICE  RANLETT 


Milwaukee: 
The  Young  Churchman  Co. 

London: 
A.  R.  Mowbray  &  Co. 


Copyright,  1911, 

by 

THE  YOUNG  CHURCHMAN  CO. 


Reprinted, 

iu  considerable  part,  from 

The  YoI'Ng  Christian  Soldier. 


5 


CONTENTS 

I. — The  Eabliest  of  All 1 

II. — History  of  the  Fouxdattox 10 

III.— In  Virginia        16 

IV. — In  Maine  and  New  Hajipsiiibe 32 

V. — In  Massachusetts 42 

VI. — Other  Beginnings 48 

VII. — In  the  South 54 

VIII. — A  Group  of  Early  Missionaries     ....  64 

IX. — The  Church  and  the  Yatton 72 

X. — The  First  Bishops 81 

XL — The  Advance 92 

XII. — The  Missionary  Church 106 


19 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Pocahontas  Saving  the  Life  of  Captain  John 

Smith Frontispiece 

Bas-Relief  ^Iexiorial  of  Robert  Hunt's  First 
Celebration  of  Holy  Communion,  James- 
town,   Va 20-21 

Captain  John  Smith  and  Pocahontas           .      .  24-25 

Ruins  of  Jamestown   (Va. )   Tower     ....  30-31 

Rev.  John  Wesley 68-69 

An  Historic  Font 72-73 

Bishop  Seabltry 84-85 

Bishop  Seabury's  Mitre 86-87 

Bishop  WiixiAii  White 90-91 

Bishop  Hobart 92-93 

Bishop  Philander  Chase 94-95 

Bishop  Kemper 102-103 

Rev.  James  Lloyd  Breck 102-103 

Bishop  George  Washington  Doane     ....  108-109 

Bishop  Channing  ^fooRE  Williams     ....  110-111 

Bishop  Boone,  Sr 110-111 


The  Earliest  of  All. 

When  we  look  at  an  old  oak-tree  with  massive 
trunk,  spreading  branches,  and  glory  of  graceful, 
deep-lobed  leaves,  pink-flushed  in  spring,  shining 
green  in  summer,  and  glowing  crimson  in  autumn, 
if  we  are  thinking  folk,  we  are  likely  to  ask,  "Where 
did  this  noble  tree  come  from?"  and  to  wonder,  as 
we  answer  ourselves:  "From  a  tiny  golden-brown 
acorn  that  fell  from  an  older  tree."  And  then  we 
think  how  that  tree  came  from  yet  an  older,  and  so 
on,  back  to  the  long  ago  birthday  of  oak-trees  and 
other  trees,  wlien  God,  creating,  said,  '"Let  the  eartli 
bring  forth  the  fruit-tree,  yielding  fruit  after  his 
kind."  And  we  look  again  at  our  grand  forest-tree, 
and,  marvelling,  tbink  liow  one  small  acorn  holds  in 
its  dainty  cup  the  "possibility  of  not  only  one  oak- 
tree,  but  of  oak-trees  to  the  thousandth  generation, 
indeed,  of  oak-trees  without  end." 

In  some  such  way,  when  we  consider  the  beauty 
and  strength  of  Christ's  C'bnrcli  in  this  dear  land  of 


2  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

ours,  and  look  backward  to  learn  how  she  has  come 
to  this  estate,  we  find  that  she  has  grown  from  grace 
to  grace  out  of  the  seed  of  God's  creation  carried  from 
land  to  land  and  nourished  by  His  servants  of  many 
ages;  and  we  learn  that  about  three  hundred  years 
ago  this  seed  was  brought  to  this  country  by  our 
forefathers  from  the  old  home  of  the  Church  in 
England,  where  for  nearly  sixteen  centuries  she  had 
been  giving  her  fruit  for  the  healing  of  men's  souls. 

To  England,  also  across  the  sea,  the  seed  of  the 
Church  was  carried,  probably  in  the  days  when  St. 
Paul,  the  Missionary  to  the  West,  was  a  prisoner  in 
Kome,  chained  to  two  soldiers  whose  fellow-soldiers 
were  fighting  for  the  Eoman  Emperor  in  heathen 
Britain.  Perhaps  St.  Paul's  fellow-prisoners  were 
nobles  brought  in  chains  from  that  same  Britain  to 
Rome,  there  to  become  the  freemen  of  the  Lord,  and 
to  carry  news  of  Him  to  their  own  people.  Then,  if 
we  still  look  backward,  we  shall  keep,  with  St.  Paul, 
St.  Peter,  St.  John,  and  the  Apostolic  Church  of  all 
lands,  for  the  first  great  memory  day  of  our  Ameri- 
can Church,  her  Birthday,  when,  in  the  upper  cham- 
ber at  Jerusalem,  life  and  power  came  to  her  at 
Pentecost  by  the  might  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

There  are  many  great  memory  days  of  the  Churcli 
in  other  lands  that  we  should  gladly  think  of  with 
honor,  but  we  must  not  linger  for  these,  until  we 
come  to  tlie  time  when  our  English  forefathers,  sail- 
ing to  discover  unknown  lands,  carried  with  them 


OF  THE  CHUECH  IN  AMERICA  3 

across  the  storm}'  ocean  the  seed  of  the  Church 
which  for  ages  had  been  the  Mother  Church  of  their 
people  and  ours. 

When,  on  8t.  John's  Day  in  liOT,  John  Cabot, 
coming  upon  the  Labrador  coast,  discovered  for  the 
Avorld  the  continent  of  America,  he  carried  with  him 
in  his  English  ship  some  minister  of  the  English 
Church  (un-reformed)  ;  and  when  he  planted  on  the 
barren  shore  the  banner  of  England,  almost  certainly 
the  prayers  of  the  Church  were  said  for  the  first  time 
in  America.  And  when  John's  son,  Sebastian  Cabot, 
in  the  reign  of  the  young  Edward  VI.,  sailed  in 
1553  to  "discover  places  unknown,"  with  him  went 
Master  Richard  Stafford,  minister  of  the  Church  of 
England,  who  daily  read  Morning  and  Evening 
Prayer,  and  the  other  Church  services  which  were 
"strictly  enjoined."  "In  the  name  and  fear  of  God, 
the  explorers  put  forth  on  the  unknown  seas,  carry- 
ing with  them  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ  as  their 
viaticum,"  and  the  last  home  words  that  they  heard 
were  the  prayers  of  the  Church.  "The  cross  with  the 
arms  of  England  marked  their  discoveries,  and  on 
their  way,  north  to  the  ice,  south  to  the  boundaries 
of  the  globe,  and  west  to  the  broad  rivers  and  inland 
seas  of  the  New  World,  the  prayers  of  the  English 
Church  were  said  daily";  and  the  old  log-books  and 
charters  mention  the  desire  of  the  sailors  to  carry 
the  Word  of  God  to  these  "very  mighty,  vast 
countries." 


4  SOME  MRMORY  DAYS 

Tliere  are  many  great  iiieniorv  da^'s  of  our  Church 
in  the  years  when  the  national  life  of  England  was 
in  full  vigor,  with  Queen  Elizabeth  on  the  throne, 
gathering  about  her  great  men  of  thought  and  action, 
sailors  and  soldiers,  statesmen,  poets,  philosophers, 
discoverers,  and  Churchmen.  The  world  of  things 
and  tlie  world  of  tliought  were  growing  fast;  Colum- 
bus, Amerigo  Vespucci,  and  the  Cabots  had  found  a 
way  to  the  new  continent,  and  with  the  love  for  ad- 
venture and  desire  for  gold  and  also  for  new  things, 
the  love  of  country  and  queen  and  the  love  of  the 
Church  and  her  Holy  King,  urged  Englishmen  to 
found  English  colonies  in  the  New  World. 

Among  the  stirring  spirits  of  the  time  was  Cap- 
tain Martin  Frobislier,  who,  firmly  believing  in  a 
short  passage  to  China,  determined  to  go  himself, 
"and  make  full  proof  thereof";  and  who,  sailing  on 
his  first  voyage,  in  159G,  pushed  on  amid  "cruel 
storms  of  snow  and  haile,  great  islands  of  yce,  and 
mighty  deere  which  ran  at  him  so  that  hardly  he 
escaped  with  his  life." 

But  it  is  in  a  later  voyage  of  the  brave  Frobisher 
that  we  find  a  Church  memory  day,  for  this  time 
there  sailed  with  him  Master  Wolfall,  "the  first  mis- 
sionary priest  of  the  English  Church  to  America, 
a  learned  man,  appointed  by  her  Majesty's  council 
to  be  their  minister  and  preacher,  who,  being  well 
seated  in  his  own  country,  with  a  good  living,"  left 
home  and  family  to  "take  in  hand  this  painful  voy- 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  5 

age  for  the  only  care  lie  had  to  save  soules  to  Chris- 
tianit}'.-'  The  voyage  was  full  of  perils;  the  ships 
sometiiiies  struck  "great  rocks  of  yce  like  mighty 
mountains,  from  whose  melting  tops  poured  down 
streams  able  to  drive  a  mill,"  and  the  "brunt  of  these 
so  great  and  extreme  dangers  overcame  the  poore 
mariners" ;  but,  in  August,  they  reached  their  "former 
harbor,*'  probably  in  Labrador,  and  "highly  praised 
God  and,  upon  their  knees,  gave  Him  due,  humble 
and  heartie  thanks.''  And  there,  among  the  ice  fields 
far  to  the  north,  on  the  eastern  coast  of  America,  on 
a  Church  memory  day,  was  God  first  worshipped  in 
America  in  the  Holy  Communion  according  to  the 
Church  of  England;  for  Master  AVolfall  "celebrated 
a  communion  at  the  partaking  whereof  was  the  cap- 
tain and  many  other  soldiers,  mariners,  and  miners. 
This  celebration  of  the  Divine  Mystery  was  the  first 
signe,  seale,  and  confirmation  of  Christ's  Name, 
death,  and  passion  ever  known  in  these  quarters." 

While  Frobisher,  with  Master  Wolfall,  was  skirt- 
ing the  Labrador  coast,  another  brave  Englishman, 
-Sir  Francis  Drake,  had  gone  far  south,  passed 
through  the  straits  of  Magellan,  and  sailing  north 
along  the  western  coast,  discovered  the  country  whicli 
is  now  Califor)iia  and  Oregon,  and  on  that  memory 
day  of  the  Church  which  is  the  Eve  of  the  Day  of  St. 
John  Baptist,  J 579,  Drake  in  his  ship,  tJie  Pelican. 
sailed  into  a  "faire  goode  baye,"  probably  San  Fran- 
cisco   Bay,    and    called    his    company    together    for 


6  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

prayers.  The  wondering  Indians  brought  presents, 
bunches  of  black  feathers,  rush  baskets  filled  with 
tobacco,  quivers  of  arrows,  and  furs,  which  the  ad- 
miral took,  and  gave  back  clothing  and  linen.  But 
when  he  saw  that  the  poor  people  looked  on  the  Eng- 
lish as  gods,  he  with  his  company  fell  to  prayers,  and 
lifted  up  eyes  and  hands  to  heaven,  to  show  that  the 
God  who  should  be  worshipped  is  above;  and  Francis 
Fletcher,  the  chaplain,  prayed  God  to  open  the  sav- 
ages' blinded  eyes  ''that  they  might  be  called  to  the 
knowledge  of  Him,  the  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ, 
the  Salvation  of  the  Gentiles." 

During  the  prayers,  reading  the  Bible,  and  sing- 
ing the  Psalms,  the  Indians  sat  attentive  and  as  if 
taking  pleasure,  and  often  afterward  asked  for  the 
prayers  and  singing.  When  they  showed  their  "griefs 
and  aches,"  the  English  treated  these  with  salves 
and  lotions,  "beseeching  God  to  give  cure  to  their  dis- 
eases by  these  means."  Then  a  great  company  came, 
escorting  the  Indian  king  with  a  bodyguard  of  a  hun- 
dred tall  savages,  and  with  solemn  dances  and  sing- 
ing they  offered  their  crown  and  sceptre  to  the  Eng- 
lish. These  Drake  took,  wishing  that  people  so  tract- 
able and  loving  might,  by  the  "preaching  of  the  Gos- 
pel, be  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  tlie  true  and  ever- 
lasting God." 

Drake  called  the  country  Albion,  with  a  loving 
thought  of  his  home  country,  and  because  of  the  white 
cliffs:  and  lie  set  up  there  a  monument  claiming  the 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  AMERICA  7 

land  for  England;  and  Admiral  Drake's  chaplain, 
Francis  Fletcher,  has  tJie  honor  of  being  the  first  of 
the  English  Church  to  minister  the  "Word  and  Sacra- 
ments in  the  territory  of  the  United  States.  Per- 
haps, when,  on  that  St.  John  Baptist's  Day  so  long 
ago,  he  said  the  Collect  of  the  Church,  he  hoped  that 
he,  too,  by  ''God's  Providence,"  had  been  sent  to  that 
far-off  Pacific  shore  to  "prepare  the  way  of  God's 
Son  our  Saviour."  In  some  way,  perhaps,  he  did 
such  preparing,  and  he  and  his  companions  seem  to 
have  shown  a  gentle  spirit  of  love  to  the  natives,  for 
these,  when  they  saw  the  English  making  ready  to 
depart,  burst  into  "sighs  and  sorrowings  and  woful 
complaints  and  moans  and  Ijitter  tears";  but,  finally, 
when  Drake's  company  "fell  to  prayers  and  singing 
of  Psalms,"  the  Indians  became  calm  and  also  "fell 
a-lifting  of  their  eyes  and  hands  to  heaven,"  like  the 
white  men.  Then  from  tlie  liill-tops  they  watched 
the  sailing  ships  and  were  left  alone  on  the  Pacific 
shore,  perhaps  dimly  understanding  that  the  Great 
Spirit  had  sent  messengers  to  teach  them  of  Himself, 
and  doubtless  looking  forward  to  the  coming  again 
of  these  white-faced  messengers.  Poor,  simple  souls, 
joining,  for  a  few  summer  days,  in  will  at  least,  in 
the  worship  of  the  Church,  and  lifting  up  their  eyes 
to  God  I  ]\Iay  we  not  believe  that  even  so  they  were 
better  prepared  to  meet  the  next  messengers,  whether 
men  or  angels,  whom  God  should  send  to  them.  His 
untaught  children  of  the  far  Western  land,  for  whom 


8  SOME  MEMOKY  DAYS 

more    than   three   ct'iituries   ago   the   prayers   of   the 
Church  were  said  into  the  listening  ear  of  God? 

One  of  the  first  of  the  noble  discoverers  of  Auiei- 
ica — the  first  he  is  called  to  ''erect  an  habitation  ami 
government  in  these  countreys" — was  the  gallant  8ir 
Humphre}^  Gilbert,  who,  in  I0I8  and  again  in  1583, 
endeavoring  to  settle  in  America  men  of  the  English 
nation  and  English  Church,  said  he  was  urged  in 
this  by  the  honor  of  God  and  by  compassion  for  the 
poor  natives  "whom  it  seemed  God  had  designed  to 
be  redeemed  by  Christianity  l^y  the  English."  In- 
stead of  seeking  to  acquire  great  wealth  for  himself, 
Gilbert  wished  to  help  his  countrymen  and  to 
carry  God's  Word  into  the  very  "mighty  and  vast 
countreys."  He  sacrificed  his  own  fortune  to  equip 
his  little  fleet  of  five  small  barques,  with  which  he 
sailed  across  the  Atlantic.  Landing  in  Xewfound- 
land,  he  took  possession  of  the  island  for  England 
and  provided  for  the  care  of  the  settlement  by  the 
Church.  The  storms  and  dangers  of  the  coast  terri- 
fied many  of  his  men,  who  deserted  him;  but,  com- 
manding himself  the  little  barque  Squirrel,  with  two 
other  vessels,  he  sailed  southward,  seeking  other  land- 
ing-places, till  the  "outrageous"  seas  and  storms  over- 
came his  frail  barque.  But  tliese  could  not  overcome 
the  courage  and  faith  of  her  captain,  who,  just  be- 
fore the  vessel  sank,  on  the  Tenth  Sunday  after 
Trinity,  1583,  was  seen  sitting  aloft  with  a  book, 
and  cheering  his  men,  calling  to  them,  "'We  are  as 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  9 

near  to  heaven  by  sea  as  by  land."  So  Sir  Humphrey 
was  one  of  the  brave  men  who  began  to  bring  the  seed 
of  the  Church  to  our  land,  and  when,  on  a  certain 
smnmer  Sunday  which  is  one  of  our  memory  days, 
we,  throughout  this  great  country,  pray  God  to  "make 
us  ask  such  things  as  shall  please  Him,"  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  noble  Gilbert's  holy  longings  and  prayers 
were  for  Just  such  things,  and  that  through  them 
blessings  have  come  to  the  Church  in  this  western 
land  where  he  strove  to  plant  the  old  Faith. 

With  another  English  explorer,  Sir  Eichard  Gren- 
ville,  in  1585,  sailed  the  honored  Master  Hariot, 
scholar  and  historian,  who  in  each  place  to  which  they 
came  "set  forth  the  Bible  and  the  knowledge  of  the 
true  God,  that  the  Indians  might  be  made  partakers 
of  His  truth."  A  man  of  prayer  himself,  by  example 
and  by  teaching  he  impressed  the  poor  savages  with 
some  sense  of  the  value  of  prayer,  and,  in  their  simple 
way,  they  tried  to  show  their  reverence  for  the  Bible 
and  their  hungry  desire  to  know  its  contents  by  strok- 
ing and  kissing  the  Book. 

i\.s  we  think  of  these  memory  days  when,  in  the 
first  English  ships  that  came  to  this  land  came  the 
seed  of  the  Church  and  the  Word  of  God,  may  we 
not  believe  that  some  souls  of  the  forest  people  in 
those  old  times  are  also  keeping  them  as  glad  memory 
days  in  the  Church  Unseen,  and  praising  the  Lord 
whom  thev  there  learned  to  know? 


II. 

Helpers  of  the  Foundation. 

Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  the  "soldier  resolute 
in  Jesus  Christ/'  as  he  was  called,  went  down  into  the 
raging  waves  in  the  "great  torment  of  weather,"  but 
the  cause  of  the  Church  in  America  was  not  wrecked, 
and  Gilbert's  attempt  to  plant  Christian  inhabitants 
there  led  to  great  things,  for  Edward  Hayes,  a  Chris- 
tian gentleman  of  Gilbert's  company,  "continued  to 
the  end,  and  by  God's  assistance  returned  home"  to 
write  a  thrilling  account  of  his  voyage.  He  reminded 
Englishmen  that  Gilbert's  failure  but  proved  that 
''little  by  little  men  were  to  be  won  to  the  truth,  and 
that  they  ought  to  be  prepared  to  execute  God's  will, 
when  the  due  time  should  come  to  call  the  pagan 
Americans  to  Christianity";  and  he  begged  men  to 
go  to  the  New  World  with  virtuous  motives,  chiefly 
the  honor  of  God  and  the  help  that  they  could  give, 
for  it  seemed  that  God  had  reserved  Xorth  America 
to  be  reduced  to  Christianity  by  the  English  nation. 

Mr.  Hayes  also  wrote  a  winsome  account  of  the 
lands  visited,  of  the  harmless  Indians,  the  rich  and 
varied  products  of  sea  and  land,  tlie  incredible  quan- 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  11 

tity  of  trout,  salmon,  and  cod,  whales,  and  delicious 
turbot,  lobsters,  and  oysters  having  pearls.  He  de- 
scribed the  vast  forests  of  firs,  pines,  and  cypresses, 
to  supply  tar,  pitch,  boards,  and  masts ;  he  mentioned 
the  wild  roses  "passing  sweet"  and  the  rich  grass 
"which  fats  sheep  in  a  short  space,"  and  the  peas 
sown  by  the  English,  the  "first  fruits  of  industry  in 
the  far  land";  and  he  wrote  of  partridges,  falcons, 
and  canary-birds,  of  red  deer,  buffaloes,  bears,  wolves, 
foxes,  beavers,  martins,  and  sables  with  choice  fur, 
and  of  many  "other  creatures  which  led  the  English 
explorers  to  glorify  God,  who  filled  the  earth  with 
animals  for  the  use  of  man."  So  Gilbert's  discov- 
eries and  efforts  to  possess  America  for  God  aroused 
other  Englishmen  to  take  up  the  task  that  dropped 
from  his  hand. 

Sir  Walter  Ealeigh,  a  favorite  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
whose  attention  our  history  students  will  remember 
he  won  by  throwing  his  velvet  cloak  into  the  mud  to 
be  a  mat  for  her  feet,  was  deeply  interested  in 
America  and  fitted  out  the  expedition  which  resulted 
in  the  settlement  of  Roanoke  Island,  on  the  coast 
of  North  Carolina.  Here,  on  August  18,  1587,  was 
born  Virginia  Dare,  the  granddaughter  of  the  col- 
ony's Governor,  and  the  first-born  American  child 
of  English  parents  upon  whose  brow  fell  the  glisten- 
ing drops  of  water  in  baptism,  while  the  words  of 
the  English  Prayer  Book  declared  that  she  was  re- 
ceived "into  the  congregation  of  Christ's  flock," 


12  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

The  little  Virginia  came  to  a  home  whose  people 
were  already  suffering  hunger  in  their  brave  effort 
to  build  an  English  America ;  and  when  she  was  a 
wee  baby  her  grandfather,  the  Governor,  was  obliged 
to  go  to  England  for  assistance.  When  he  returned 
to  Roanoke  Island  he  found  grass  growing  in  the 
deserted  block-house,  and  fragments  of  his  own  books 
and  pictures  scattered  over  the  grovmd,  but  not  a 
living  soul  on  the  island.  He  never  again  heard  from 
his  loved  ones,  except  that,  years  afterwards,  some 
Indians  declared  that,  from  a  general  massacre  of 
English  who  came  from  an  island,  a  young  white 
girl  had  been  saved  and  was  living  with  the  savages : 
and  to  this  day  some  believe  that  this  white  girl 
was  the  little  Virginia  Dare,  and  that  her  grand- 
children in  some  degree  are  among  the  half-breeds 
of  North  Carolina.  So  it  is  possible  that,  when  our 
American  Church  is  teaching  the  Indians  of  the 
South,  she  may  be  leading  back  to  the  Faith  some 
descendant  of  the  first  child  of  the  Church  born  in 
N"orth  America. 

Among  those  who  did  noble  service  in  planting 
the  Church  in  America  were  some  wdio  themselves 
never  sailed  across  tlie  ocean  to  the  New  World;  for 
in  the  time  of  Queen  Bess,  as  now,  the  pen  of  a  think- 
ing man  was  a  mighty  weapon  and  ii\spired  people 
to  great  deeds.  Especially  let  us  honor  one  of  these 
men  who  vigorously  and  lovingly  helped  us  on  our 
way  to  our  Nation  and  our  Church.     His  name  is 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  13 

Richard  Hakluyt,  and  he  was  a  schoolboy  in  West- 
minster School,  London,  when,  one  day  in  the  year 
1568,  he  went  into  a  quiet  room  in  the  Temple,  where 
his  cousin,  an  older  Richard  Hakluyt,  sat  dreaming 
over  the  maps  of  the  Western  world,  new  and  wonder- 
ful in  that  time.  The  older  man  opened  the  Bible, 
and  pointed  to  those  verses  which  declare  that  "they 
that  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  and  occupy  their 
business  in  great  waters;  these  men  see  the  works  of 
the  Lord,  and  His  wonders  in  the  deep";  then  he 
called  the  boy's  attention  to  the  fascinating  maps. 

This  incident  determined  the  young  Richard's 
career,  and,  as  it  led  to  his  having  an  important  share 
in  planting  England  in  America,  it  made  that  day  in 
1568  a  memory  day  for  us.  For  the  boy,  after  years 
of  study  at  Oxford,  becaipe  the  chaplain  of  the  Eng- 
lish Embassy  in  Paris,  and  later  one  of  the  clergy 
of  Westminstei",  in  whose  great  abbey  he  was  buried 
with  high  honors;  and,  while  his  life  was  spent  in 
the  service  of  the  Church  of  England,  it  was  also 
spent  in  the  service  of  the  yet  unplanted  Church  in 
America.  Richard  Hakluyt,  with  practical  common 
sense,  high  wisdom,  and  great  faith  in,  and  hope  for, 
things  yet  to  be,  became  the  wisest  man  of  his  age 
in  the  wonderful,  new,  ever-growing  geography  of  the 
time,  and  the  Englishman  who  knew  the  very  most 
about  all  matters  relating  to  the  New  World.  His 
book,  called  Principal  Voijaye-s',  full  of  poetry  and 
thrilling  in  interest,  contains  the  exciting  accounts 


14  SOME  ME]MORY  DAYS 

of  the  bold  journeys  of  Frobisher,  Drake,  Gilbert, 
and  the  other  sailor-kings  of  Elizabeth's  day;  and  its 
stirring,  inspiring  tales  roused  many  to  sail  away  to 
the  great  mysterious  Western  land. 

Also,  at  the  request  of  Ealeigh,  and  especially  to 
arouse  the  Queen's  interest  in  the  new  country,  Hak- 
luyt  wrote  his  famous  Discourse  of  Western  Planting, 
in  which  in  his  quaint  way  he  sets  forth  many  sound 
reasons  for  the  planting  of  colonies  by  England  in 
North  America,  declaring  that  "Virginia  was  the 
door  that  God  had  opened,"  and  that  "this  Western 
discoverie  will  be  greatly  for  the  enlargement  of  the 
Gospel  of  Christ."  "It  remaineth,"  he  writes,  "to  be 
thoroughly  weighed  by  what  means  and  by  whom  this 
truest  Christian  work  may  be  performed  and  multi- 
tudes of  simple  people  l)e  led  into  the  way  of  their 
salvation.  Preachers  should  be  sent  by  those  who 
have  taken  on  themselves  the  defence  of  the  Faith, 
and  this  ought  to  be  their  chief  work.  The  way  to 
send  help  is  to  plant  colonies  and  learn  the  language 
of  the  people,  and  instil  into  their  minds  the  sweet 
liquor  of  the  Gospel,  not  thinking  of  gaining  filthy 
lucre,  but  gaining  the  souls  of  millions  of  wretched 
people.  The  people  of  America  cry  out  to  us,  their 
next  neighbors,  to  come  and  help  them,  and  unto 
those  who  shall  do  this  worthy  work  God  shall  give 
of  His  riches." 

While  the  wise  Hakluyt  and  others  were  thus 
writing  and  teaching  to  help  on  the  planting  of  the. 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  15 

Western  land,  the  naval  heroes,  Drake,  Hawkins,  Fro- 
bisher,  and  Howard,  and  the  keen  statesmen,  Bur- 
leigh and  Walsingham,  were  working-  together,  and 
"behind  them  the  wayward,  wilful,  but  always  brave 
and  patriotic  Queen  Elizabeth";  and  close  at  hand 
was  an  event  which,  under  God's  guidance,  was  to 
make  safe  and  sure  the  planting  ol;  England  and  the 
Church  in  the  Xew  World. 

In  the  summer  of  1588  came  that  event  the  story 
of  which  we  read  even  now  breathless  with  excite- 
ment. Up  the  English  Channel  sailed  one  hundred 
and  thirty  black  ships-of-war  from  Spain,  with  three 
thousand  cannon  and  thirty  thousand  men,  and  car- 
rying ninety  executioners  with  racks  and  thumb- 
screws, to  set  up  the  Inquisition  on  English  soil.  We 
know  the  thrilling  story,  how  "the  intelligence  of 
English  freemen  fought  against  mediaeval  chivalry" ; 
how,  with  a  frightful  loss  of  ships  and  men,  the  great 
Armada  was  destroyed,  and  how  the  English  sea- 
kings  pursued  their  victories  until  England  ruled 
the  sea,  and  so  was  free  to  plant  her  colonies  in 
America  and  leave  them  there  in  safety,  for  colonies 
cannot  live  if  the  line  is  cut  between  them  and  the 
mother  country. 

So  the  day  of  the  defeat  of  the  great  Armada  is 
one  of  our  memory  days,  since  this  was  the  event 
in  the  glorious  history  of  England  that  made  it  pos- 
sible for  her  people  and  hei'  Church  to  l)e  planted  in 
North  America. 


III. 

In  Virginia. 

When,  by  the  defeat  of  the  Armada,  the  ocean 
road  was  quite  safe  for  Eughind,  Englishmen  of  the 
highest  character  and  intelligence  hastened  to  make 
the  best  use  of  it  by  sending  over  its  broad  water- 
way new  companies  of  colonists  to  America.  Espe- 
cially, Sir  Walter  Ealeigh  never  forgot  Virginia,  and 
though  his  efforts  to  make  an  English  settlement 
there  had  exhausted  his  fortunes,  and  troubles  and 
imprisonment  in  the  grim  tower  of  London  came  to 
him,  still  his  zealous  labor  kept  alive  the  interest  in 
Virginia.  In  1606,  one  of  his  friends,  a  stout  sailor, 
Capt.  Christopher  Newport  by  name,  was  placed  in 
command  of  an  expedition  which  set  sail  in  three 
vessels,  the  Susan  Constant,  the  Godspeed,  and  the 
Discovery,  on  New  Year's  Day,  1607,  three  hundred 
and  four  years  ago  our  very  latest  New  Year's  Day. 
A  true  memory  day  for  our  nation  and  our  Church 
that  was,  marking  the  beginning  of  wonderful  new 
years  for  the  Mother  Old  World  and  its  daughter- 
land,  America. 

As  the  colonists  sailed   away  from   England,  a 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  17 

farewell   was  wafted  to  them   in  the   verses   of  the 
poet  laureate,  Michael  Drayton,  who  sang: 

"You  have  heroic  minds, 
Worthy  your  country's  naine, 
That  honor  still  pursue; 
Go  and  subdue. 

"And  cheerfully  at  sea 
Success  you  still  entice 
To  get  the  pearl  and  gold, 
And  ours  to  hold 
Virginia, 
Earth's  very  paradise! 
In  kenning  of  the  shore, 
Be  thanks  to  GJod  first  given." 

The  colonists  carried,  for  their  help  in  the  new 
land,  careful  instructions,  supposed  to  have  been 
written  by  the  wise  Hakluyt.  They  were  advised  to 
choose  a  strong,  wholesome,  and  fertile  place  for  their 
settlement;  to  take  great  care  not  to  offend  the  na- 
tives; to  "make  themselves  all  of  one  mind  for  the 
good  of  their  country";  and  to  "serve  and  fear  God, 
the  giver  of  all  goodness;  for  every  plantation  which 
our  Heavenly  Father  doth  not  plant  shall  be  rooted 
out." 

After  a  long  and  trying  voyage,  on  April  26, 
1G07,  two  years  before  the  French  settled  Canada, 
and  thirteeen  years  before  the  Pilgrim  Mayfower 
sailed  into  Plymouth  harbor,  the  three  little  vessels 
with  their  precious  freight,  the  seed  of  the  Church, 
came  to  the  American  shore  at  Cape  Henry,  Vir- 


18  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

ginia.  Taking  shelter  from  a  .storm  iu  Hampton 
Eoads,  the  colonists  named  its  promontory  Point 
Comfort,  and,  sailing  up  the  hroad  river,  they  chose 
a  place  for  their  settlement  on  a  little  peninsula, 
where  they  landed.  May  13,  160T.  A  glorious  mem- 
ory day  this,  for  the  triangular  fort  at  once  built  by 
the  Englishmen  was  that  which  was  called  Fort 
James  for  their  king,  and  soon  tlie  settlement  was 
known  as  Jamestown,  that  sacred  place  where  "first 
the  Old  World  permanently  touched  the  Xew^  where 
the  white  man  first  met  the  redskin  for  civilization, 
and  where  the  English  cut  the  first  tree  for  the  first 
log-cabin.  Here  was  the  first  capital  of  our  empire 
of  states;  here  was  the  first  foundation  of  a  nation 
of  freemen;  here  was  the  first  successful  planting  of 
the  English  and  the  English  Church  in  the  Xew 
World,  the  garden  of  our  infancy  in  the  \^'est;  and 
here  the  English  race  first  came  into  possession  of 
their  portion  of  the  New  World  and  began  to  shape 
the  destiny  of  this  continent,""  for  the  men  who 
settled  Jan^estown  brouglit  with  them  English  lib- 
erty and  the  English  Church. 

Among  the  leaders  of  the  colony  were  men  chiv- 
alrous and  pious,  longing  to  enlarge  the  realms  of 
their  king  and  the  bounds  of  the  Kingdom  of  God; 
and  valiant  soldiers,  and  men  of  gentle  breeding 
and  spiritual  enthusiasm  and  devotion,  of  whom 
Hakluyt  wrote :  "If  gentle  polishing  will  not  serve 
to  bring  the  Indians  of  Virginia  to  civil  causes,  our 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  19 

old,  war-trained  soldiers  will  be  hammers  to  prepare 
them  for  the  preacher's  hands." 

In  the  Letters  under  which  the  colony  was  sent, 
we  read  of  the  desire  for  the  "furtherance  of  a  work 
which  may  tend  to  the  glory  of  God's  Divine  Majes- 
ty, by  bringing  the  savages  to  knowledge  of  Him" ; 
and  the  instructions  directed  that  they  should  with 
all  diligence  provide  that  the  "true  word  and  service 
of  the  Christian  Faith  according  to  the  religion  of 
the  Church  of  England  should  be  preached  and  used 
not  only  in  the  plantations,  but  also  among  the 
savages." 

The  men  who  founded  Virginia  were  men  loyal 
to  England  and  the  Church.  Belonging  to  no  party 
and  having  no  grievances,  but  coming  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  all  that  was  best  behind  them,  they  built 
a  noble  new  establishment  upon  the  old  foundation. 
Thus  the  "Mother  of  States"  was  by  God's  grace 
planted  with  the  precious  seed  of  the  old  Church, 
brought  across  the  ocean  in  the  brave  little  pioneer 
ships,  Susan  Constant,  Godspeed,  and  Discovery. 

Prominent  among  the  Jamestown  colonists  were 
Master  Edward  Wingfield,  the  Honorable  George 
Percy,  Captain  John  Smith ;  and  there  were  other 
men,  with  the  "boys,"  Nat  Peacock  and  Dick  Mut- 
ton; and  in  their  midst  moved  that  man  of  God, 
the  Rev.  Robert  Hunt,  whose  courage,  wise  counsel, 
self-sacrifice,  and  devotion  often  made  peace  in  times 
of   disagreement.     With    patient    meekness   he    dis- 


20  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

armed  all  opposition,  and  his  cheerful  faith  maiu- 
tained  the  sinking  spirits  of  his  flock;  and  "when, 
in  a  fire  in  the  rising  town,  he  lost  his  library  and 
everything  that  he  had,  no  one  heard  him  murmur." 

On  the  day  after  the  landing,  a  sail  was  spread 
over  the  heads  of  the  people,  and  a  board  was  nailed 
between  two  trees  for  a  reading-desk,  and  there,  in 
the  flickering  sunshine  and  shadows  of  the  forest, 
with  the  wondering  Indians  lurking  in  the  back- 
ground, and  men  armed  with  Ijlunderbusses  guard- 
ing the  congregation,  the  colonists  knelt  with  their 
devoted  pastor  (the  first  English  pastor  in  America), 
to  offer  God  the  "sacrifice  of  praise  and  thanksgiv- 
ing," and  to  receive  the  Body  and  Blood  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  As  they  prayed  in  the  Psalms  of  that 
fourteenth  day,  we  may  think  of  their  strong  faith 
when  they  spoke  the  words :  "In  Thee,  0  Lord,  have 
I  put  my  trust.  Thou  art  my  house  of  defence.  I 
will  go  forth  in  the  strength  of  the  Lord  God,  and 
will  make  mention  of  Thy  righteousness  only."  x\nd 
we  may  be  sure  that  their  hearts  beat  high  with 
hope,  as  they  read  on:  "His  dominion  shall  be  also 
from  the  one  sea  to  the  other,  and  from  the  flbod 
unto  the  world's  end.  They  that  dwell  in  the  wilder- 
ness shall  kneel  before  Him.  .  .  .  All  the  heathen 
shall  praise  Him.  And  all  the  earth  shall  be  filled 
with  His  Majesty." 

The  first  building  that  these  English  Churchmen 
put  up,  after  their  fort,  was  a  small  log  church,  the 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  AMERICA  21 

inuther  church  of  America,  which  was  burned  by  the 
Indians,  but  replaced  in  1619  b}'  a  second,  and  that 
by  a  third  and  larger  structure.  The  tower  which, 
half-ruined,  still  stands  at  Jamestown,  may  be  a  part 
of  the  second  church;  its  form  shows  that  once 
sentries,  watching  for  Indians,  patrolled  its  roof,  and 
that  soldiers  used  its  loop-holes  for  the  defence  of 
the  town. 

Although  the  colonists  landed  in  the  sunshine 
and  among  the  bright  flowers  of  May,  they  had  as 
hard  a  time  as  the  Pilgrims,  who,  thirteen  years 
later,  landed  amid  the  snows  of  a  'New  England  win- 
ter. The  impure  river-water  which  they  drank 
caused  violent  sickness;  and  tliere  were  attacks  by 
the  Indians,  and  '"'starving  times""  when  food  nearly 
failed,  and  the  day's  allowance  for  each  consisted  of 
a  half-pint  of  boiled  wheat  and  the  same  of  barley, 
all  spoiled  from  being  twenty-six  weeks  in  the  ship's 
hold.  To  the  unwholesome  food  and  water  wei'e 
added  hard  and  unfanuiiar  labor,  the  frightful  sum- 
mer heat,  and  "fevers  lurking  in  the  air."  One  of 
the  men  wrote,  ''There  were  never  Englishmen  left 
in  a  foreign  country  in  such  misery  as  we  in  this 
new-discovered  Virginia.  If  it  had  not  pleased  God 
to  put  a  terror  in  the  savages'  liearts,  we  had  all 
perished;  men  were  groaning  in  every  corner  of  the 
fort,  most  pitiful  to  hear." 

Only  Captain  John  Smitlfs  keen,  alert  activity 
in  trading  with  the  Indians  for  corn  saved  the  col- 


22  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

ony  from  actual  starvation.  How  eagerly  the  look- 
out must  have  watched  for  his  small,  active  figure 
coming  out  of  the  shadowy  forest,  accompanied  by 
Indians  bringing  baskets  of  golden  maize ! 

Captain  Smith  was  a  born  leader  of  men,  a  rigid 
disciplinarian  and  of  a  noble  nature.  He  believed 
that  men  were  made  to  help  each  other,  and  justice 
was  his  guide ;  hating  sloth,  pride,  and  baseness,  he 
Avould  send  his  soldiers  into  no  dangers  where  he 
Avould  not  lead  them;  he  would  starve  rather  than 
not  pay;  he  hated  falsehood  more  than  death,  and 
it  is  believed  that,  but  for  his  superl)  courage  and 
ability,  the  Jamesto\ni  colony  would  have  perished, 
like  that  of  Eoanoke  Island. 

It  was  on  one  of  these  corn-hunting  trips  that 
Captain  Smith  was  taken  prisoner  and  carried  into 
the  long  wigwam  of  the  chief  called  Powhatan,  who 
sat  as  judge,  dressed  in  a  robe  of  raccoon  skins  with 
the  tails  still  hanging  from  them.  Beside  him  were 
his  squaws,  with  faces  painted  bright  red  and  chains 
of  Avhite  shell-beads  about  their  necks ;  and  in  front 
of  these  stood  a  line  of  grim  warriors,  ready  with 
clubs  to  dash  out  the  brains  of  the  prisoner,  who  was 
already  thrown  down  upon  a  great  stone,  when  the 
chief's  thirteen-year-old  daughter,  Pocahontas, 
rushed  up  and  threw  herself  upon  Captain  Smith, 
protecting  him,  and  inducing  her  father  to  spare  his 
life.  Xow  this  day  of  the  rescue  of  Captain  Smith, 
J;inu;ii-y  5,  1608,  is  one  of  our  memory  davs,  for  on 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  23 

it  began  the  friendly  interest  of  the  Indian  girl,  and 
her  visits  to  the  Jamestown  colony  which  her  kind 
services  more  than  once  saved  from  destruction,  as 
we  shall  see  later. 

While  Captain  Smith  was  securing  corn  from  the 
Indians  for  the  hungry  colony,  Captain  Xewport  Avas 
sailing  back  and  forth  between  England  and  Amer- 
ica, bringing  new  supplies  of  men  and  provisions. 
In  the  second  supply,  in  September,  1608,  came  the 
first  English  women  who  dared  go  to  the  great  west- 
ern wilderness,  a  Mrs.  Forrest,  and  her  maid,  Anne 
Burroughs,  who  soon  married  John  Laydon,  and 
Avhose  marriage  in  Jamestown  church,  in  December, 
1608,  was  the  first  English  f^hurch  wedding  in 
America. 

Many  of  the  settlers  were  gentlemen  quite  unac- 
customed to  manual  labor,  but  their  Avill  was  good, 
and  the  old  records  tell  us  how  they  cut  down  trees 
and  made  boards,  and  how  the  axe  blistered  their 
tender  fingers,  yet  how  thirty  of  these  gentlemen 
would  do  more  in  a  day  than  a  hundred  of  the  less 
willing  "rest."  But  they  did  not  find,  as  they  had 
expected,  golden  pans  and  kettles  in  the  Indians' 
wigwams,  nor  big  pearls  upon  the  river  shore;  and 
there  were  attacks  by  the  Indians,  and  another  starv- 
ing time  when  famine  was  warded  off  by  the  young 
Pocahontas,  who  brought  corn  and  venison,  and 
again  saved  Captain  Smith  for  the  colony.  This 
tiuic  tlie  gentle   Tiiflijiii   [jriiieess,  with  love  foi'   the 


24  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

white  men,  came  "in  a  dark  uight,  through  the  irk- 
some woods,"  and  warned  Captain  Smith  that  the 
treacherous  Indians  were  planning  ah  attack,  and 
"bade  liim  begone."  Wlien  they  wished  lier  to  take 
as  a  reward  anything  that  she  liked,  with  tears  run- 
ning down  her  cheeks  she  refused  everything.  At  a 
later  day  Pocahontas  was  held  in  Jamestown  as  a 
pledge  for  Powhatan's  good  behavior,  and  there  she 
was  converted  to  Christianity,  and  baptized,  receiv- 
ing the  name  of  Eebekah,  in  Jamestown  church, 
in  April,  1614,  before  a  great  friendly  gathering  of 
Avhite  men  and  Indians.  Here,  also,  she  married 
an  English  husband,  John  Rolfe,  so  here  are  two 
memory  days  for  us,  commemorating  the  first  bap- 
tism of  an  Indian  in  English  America,  and  the  first 
Christian  marriage  of  a  white  man  and  an  Indian 
in  the  territory  of  the  United  States. 

The  bride,  who  is  said  to  have  been  a  handsome, 
dignified  young  woman,  went  to  England,  and  was 
received  with  much  honor  as  a  princess,  and  called 
the  Lady  Eebekah;  but  the  cliild  of  the  forest  sick- 
ened and  died  in  the  foreign  land,  and  was  buried 
in  the  church  at  Gravesend.  She  left  one  son, 
Thomas  Eolfe,  who  was  educated  in  England,  but 
who,  years  afterwards,  went  back  to  Virginia  to  be- 
come the  ancestor  of  many  Virginia  families,  faith- 
ful to  the  old  Church  which  led  their  noble  fore- 
mother  from  darkness  into  light.  How  little  Poca- 
hontas'  Indian   peoj^le   understood   of   (lod   Avho   is 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  25 

Spirit,  we  may  see  by  the  mission  given  by  Pow- 
hatan to  Tomocomo,  a  chief  who  went  in  Pocahontas" 
company  to  England,  and  who  was  commanded  to 
"observe  carefully  the  King  and  Queen  and  God," 
and  to  report  his  observations  to  Powhatan.  Poor 
Tomocomo  could  never  understand  why  no  one 
among  all  the  surprisingly  many  people  in  England 
would  ever  take  him  to  God's  wigwam  and  let  him 
look  at  God. 

In  the  spring  of  1609,  twenty  houses  had  been 
built  at  Jamestown,  a  well  of  pure  water  dug  in  the 
fort,  thirty  acres  of  ground  planted,  and  seines  set 
for  fishing.  Also,  Captain  Newport  had  left  some 
swine  and  fowls,  and  the  squealing  of  sixty  pigs  and 
the  peeping  of  five  hundred  spring  chickens  might 
be  heard,  when  there  came  a  new  calamity.  Eats 
from  the  ships  increased  rapidly  in  numbers  and 
devoured  the  little  corn  that  was  left,  and  the  people 
were  again  near  starvation,  keeping  themselves  alive 
through  the  summer  by  living  like  the  Indians, 
picking  berries,  roots,  and  herbs  in  the  woods,  and 
catching  fish  and  crabs.  A  terrible  winter  followed, 
when  many  of  the  colonists  died  from  cold  and 
famine,  while  the  Indians,  watching  with  savage 
glee,  shot  at  them  '^flights  of  arrows  tipped  with 
death." 

Of  the  five  hundred  persons  at  Jamestown  in 
October,  only  sixty  feeble,  tottering  men,  women,  and 
children  crept  out  to  meet  the   Deliverance,   when 


26  SOALE  MEMORY  DAYS 

she  sailed  up  the  river  in  May,  bringing  indeed  de- 
liverance for  the  time,  but  enough  food  for  only 
one  month.  Then  the  leaders,  with  tears  in  their 
eyes,  decided  that  Virginia  must  be  abandoned,  for 
what  could  brave  men  endure  more  than  they  had 
endured  ? 

So  June  7,  1610,  was  a  sad  day,  when  it  seemed 
certain  that  the  seed  of  the  Church  had  been  blighted 
and  would  never  live  and  thrive  in  American  soil; 
for  then  the  Jamestown  people  determined  to  go 
back  to  England,  and  to  the  melancholy  roll  of  drums 
they  stripped  their  cabins  of  their  furnishings, 
buried  their  cannon  in  the  earth,  and  embarking  on 
the  pinnaces  sailed  away  down  river,  leaving  the  de- 
serted Jamestown  in  the  sombre  silence  of  the  forest. 

But  next  day,  as  the  boats  sped  on,  "a  black 
speck  was  seen  far  below  on  the  broad  waters  of 
Hampton  Roads,  no  red-man's  canoe,  but,  Heaven  be 
praised,  an  English  long-boat,''  coming  with  the  glad 
message  that  Lord  Delaware,  the  newly-appointed 
Governor  of  the  colony,  was  close  at  hand  with  three 
well-stocked  ships.  Three  days  later,  the  people  stood 
once  more  in  Jamestown,  drawn  up  in  military  array, 
while  Lord  Delaware,  landing,  fell  upon  his  knees 
and  thanked  God  that  he  had  come  in  time  to  save 
Virginia. 

The  new  governor  devoted  himself  with  zeal  and 
wisdom  to  strengthening  the  colony  and  the  Church ; 
the  men  were  kept  ni  work:  tlie  Tndiaus  \\-n't  driven 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  27 

back;  new  fortifications  were  built;  the  houses  were 
repaired,  and  the  church  was  made  more  dignified 
with  a  new  walnut  altar,  a  tall  pulpit,  a  font,  and 
a  full-toned  bell,  whose  clear  voice  called  over  the 
water  and  through  the  forest;  and,  as  the  governor 
loved  flowers,  the  church  was  always  decorated  with 
the  abundant  bright  and  fragrant  blossoms  of  the 
fields  and  woods.  The  colony,  as  was  needful  for 
the  best  good  of  all,  was  governed  strictly ;  men  were 
forbidden  to  stay  away  from  Church  services  or  to 
speak  against  the  Faith,  or  fail  to  honor  a  clergyman, 
to  take  a  voyage  on  Sunday  except  to  church,  or  fire 
a  gun  except  for  defence  against  Indians,  and  every 
man  had  to  bring  to  church  a  gun  with  plenty  of 
shot.  Each  colonist  was  given  land  to  cultivate  for 
his  own  use;  and  thrift  and  order  prevailed,  while 
great  efforts  were  made  to  pacify  the  Indians. 

By  1634  the  colony  had  spread  up  the  James 
Kiver  as  far  as  Eichmond ;  there  were  plantations  on 
both  banks,  with  stout  block-houses  and  palisades  at 
exposed  points.  The  wooden  houses  were  made  with 
rough-hewn  beams,  but  were  roomy  and  comfortable, 
and  here  and  there  was  a  handsome  mansion.  Oxen 
and  cows,  sheep  and  goats,  pigs  and  chickens  were 
innumerable;  pigeons  cooed  and  bees  hummed  over 
the  broad  fields  now  grown  with  tobacco,  wheat,  bar- 
ley, and  tasselled  Indian  corn.  The  University  men 
of  the  colony  were  beginning  to  send  to  England 
for  hooks  for  their  homes,  and  to  think  how  their 


28  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

children  should  l>e  educated  iu  this  western  world , 
and,  as  early  as  1621,  some  of  these  resolved  to  found 
a  public  free-school  to  "educate  the  children  and  to 
ground  them  in  the  principles  of  religion." 

This  school  was  designed  not  only  for  white 
youths,  but  also  for  missionary  work  among  the  In- 
dians; but  the  leaders  iu  the  movement  were  killed 
in  an  Indian  massacre,  and  it  was  not  until  years 
later  that  the  College  of  William  and  Mary,  all  but 
established  in  1622,  and  the  oldest  after  Harvard 
in  the  United  States,  came  into  being.  Thus  these 
men  of  the  English  Church,  with  high  aims  and  in- 
telligent foresight,  put  their  faith  in  education  as  a 
hope  for  the  future  good  of  tlie  land ;  nor  did  tJiey 
wait  for  the  College  of  William  and  Mary  before 
providing  by  their  legislature  for  the  education  of 
the  Indians,  provision  being  made  for  "securing  l)y 
fair  means  Indian  children  to  be  educated  in  true 
religion,  of  whom  the  most  forwardly  in  wit  and 
graces  of  nature  should  bo  fitted  in  an  English  col- 
lege, from  thence  to  go  to  convert  their  own  people." 
And  from  time  to  time,  acts  were  passed  for  the 
preservation  of  the  purity  of  the  doctrine  and  unity 
of  the  Church,  directing  ministers  and  people  to  obey 
the  old  teaching  of  the  Church  of  England. 

Jamestown  was  not-  only  the  first  home  of  the 
Church  in  the  western  wilderness,  but  there  religion 
and  wise  government  were  bound  together  in  sym- 
)>atby.    and    in    the    second-built   of   the    Jamestown 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  2ft 

churches  met  the  first  representative  legislature  of 
America,  called  the  House  of  Burgesses.  A  memory 
•  lay  for  us  of  tliis  dear  country  is  that  day  in  1619, 
a  year  before  the  Pilgrims  landed,  when  the  first 
free  government  on  this  continent  was  set  up  in 
a  cliurcli,  the  first  Congress  of  America  represent- 
ing one  thousand  colonists.  The  settlement,  with 
its  palisaded  fort,  sixty  cabins,  storehouse  and 
magazine,  remained  the  capital  of  Virginia  until,  in 
1699,  it  was  moved  to  Williamsburgh. 

But,  thougli  Jamestown  lost  its  pre-eminence,  the 
final  success  of  the  colony  impelled  other  settle- 
ments in  the  country,  and  its  triumph  in  governing 
solved  the  problem  of  our  free  country  with  its 
government  by  the  people.  And,  meantime,  English 
settlers  were  rapidly  making  homes  for  themselves 
on  the  banks  of  the  Virginia  rivei's  and  building 
clmrches  wherever  they  built  homes.  In  1639,  nine 
years  after  the  settlement  of  Boston,  the  Church 
was  so  strong  in  A^irginia  that  in  Jamestown  alone 
three  churches  had  been  l)uilt ;  and  in  closely  follow- 
ing years  churches  througliout  Virginia  were  fast 
rising,  built  of  imported  bricks,  and  still  standing 
on  the  l)anks  of  creeks,  half -concealed  by  ancient 
])ines  and  sycamores,  liouses  of  worship  wherein  man 
has  met  his  PTcavenly  Father  for  more  than  two  hun- 
dred vears. 

"Across  Jamestown  fields  in  later  years  tramped 
the  armies  that  brought  into  being  our  nation,  and 


30  SOME  JklEMOBY  DAYS 

on  them  are  remains  of  the  fortifications  built  in  the 
later  struggle  that  confirmed  the  unit}*  of  the  na- 
tion" which  is  to-day  a  great  power  of  the  earth, 
grown  from  the  feeble  little  colony  of  1607.  Corn- 
wallis'  last  fight  was  at  Jamestown,  and  American 
independence  was  won  at  Yorktown,  nineteen  miles 
from  the  place  where  English  civilization  was  first 
planted  in  America. 

But  to-day  Jamestown  is  gone:  partly  buried  in 
the  earth,  and  partly  eaten  away  by  the  ceaseless 
pounding  of  the  giant  hammer  of  the  broad  river, 
which  is  gnawing  away  the  island  at  the  rate  of  six 
feet  a  year.  Scattered  over  the  fertile  fields  and  in 
the  noble  groves  of  pines  and  oaks,  we  may  find 
pieces  of  brick  from  the  foundations  of  the  homes 
of  the  pioneers ;  beads,  striped  like  gooseberries,  with 
which  they  traded  with  the  Indians,  and  fragments 
of  red  and  white  clay  pipe  stems.  We  may  see  the 
earthen  walls  of  a  fort  built  in  1G81 ;  a  few  lonely 
gravestones  and  the  ruins  of  one  large  house,  the 
Ambler  mansion;  and  if  we  explore  this  buried  city 
carefully,  we  may  unearth  memorials  which  l)ring 
vividly  before  us  the  age  of  Captain  Smith  and  the 
pioneers — scraps  of  rusty  armor,  a  bit  of  a  halberd, 
a  spiked  ball,  silver  and  copper  coins,  a  pe^vter  basin, 
a  glass  bottle  beautifully  iridescent  from  long  burial, 
or  a  fragment  of  stained  glass  from  the  church  win- 
dows. And  while  we  gather  up  our  mementoes,  there 
soars  above  us  the  best  memento  of  all,  and  the  best 


inixs  oi-  'iiir;  .[.\.Mi:s'r()\\\   (\a.)   towi:!;. 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  AMERICA  31 

repreeentative  of  the  old  colony  to  which  the  Church 
was  the  first  and  dearest  love,  for  not  far  from  the 
river-bank  is  still  standing  the  venerable  church- 
tower,  the  oldest  i:)iece  of  masonry  in  the  land  of  the 
American  colonies.  It  is  thirty-six  feet  high,  with 
walls  three  feet  in  thickness;  and  above  its  always 
open  door  and  arched  windows  are  loop-holes,  made 
nearly  three  hundred  years  ago  for  the  guns  of  the 
soldiers  who  guarded  Jamestown  and  the  infant 
home  of  our  Church  from  the  lurking,  threatening 
Indians. 

Jamestown,  that  was  once  on  the  now  deserted 
island,  still  is  in  the  warm,  living  hearts  of  the 
American  people;  and  the  nation  celebrated  noble 
memory  days  in  1907,  because  at  Jamestown  three 
hundred  years  ago  began  her  free  institutions  and 
government;  but  the  Church  kept  these  memory 
days  also,  because  the  Jamestown  settlers  were 
Church  people,  and  then  and  there  ]')lanted  the 
Cliurcii  in  America. 


IV. 

In  Maine  and  New  Hampshire. 

In  the  years  Avhen  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and  his 
associates  were  struggling  with  zeal  and  devotion  to 
settle  English  people  and  the  English  Church  in  the 
southern  part  of  our  land,  other  Englishmen  were 
taking  a  northern  course  across  the  Atlantic,  and 
were  sailing  in  the  fragrant  shadows  of  the  spruce 
trees  through  the  passages  among  the  beautiful 
wooded  islands  of  Maine,  skirting  the  picturesque, 
cove-indented  rocky  coast,  and  making  their  way 
up  the  deep,  broad  tide-rivers,  always  wonderful  and 
charming  to  those  who  had  known  only  the  small 
streams  of  England.  Among  these  early  voyagers 
were  Captain  Gosnold  and  Martin  Pring,  who  came, 
in  1603,  in  the  Speedwell,  fitted  out  by  Eichard  Hak- 
luyt  and  others,  and  who  were  greatly  pleased  with 
the  "high  country  full  of  great  woods,"'  and  the  fine 
fishing. 

In  1605,  Captain  George  Weymouth,  skirting  the 
Maine  coast,  "fell  in  with  fair  land  richly  grown 
with  vines,  currants,  angelica,  and  divers  gums,"  and 
caught  plenty  of  fish  of  "great  bigness.''  As  he 
ascended  the  noble  rivers  in  his  pinnace,  he  carried 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  33 

always  crosses  to  set  up  as  a  sign  of  t\w  possession 
of  the  country  for  England  and  the  Church,  "a 
thing  never  omitted  by  any  Christian  travellers" : 
and  in  the  June  days  he  was  delighted  with  the  ver- 
dant earth  and  the  wide,  glassy  waters,  bordered  by 
prett}'  coves  and  green  grass,  and  melodious  with  tlie 
notes  of  the  wild  birds. 

Also  Captain  John  Smith,  the  hero  of  Jamestown, 
in  one  of  his  adventurous  voyages,  came  to  the  island 
Monhegan  and  to  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  and  sailed  up 
the  Kennebec  Eiver,  trading  with  the  Indians,  ex- 
ploring the  shores,  and  writing  a  short  history  of  the 
district. 

In  1607,  the  year  of  the  Jamestown  settlement, 
the  Plymouth  Company  in  England,  whose  leaders 
were  Lord  John  Popham,  Chief  Justice  of  England, 
and  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  sent  out  a  small  com- 
pany of  emigrants  who,  sailing  from  Plymouth  in 
the  month  when  Jamestown  was  founded,  landed  on 
August  11th  upon  an  island  of  the  Maine  shore,  and 
"immediately  assembled  to  give  thanks  to  Almighty 
God  and  to  listen  to  a  sermon."  This  was  the  first 
Church  service  of  New  England,  then  taken  posses- 
sion of  for  the  Church  and  the  Faith.  The  com- 
manders of  this  expedition  were  George  Popham,  a 
brother  of  the  Chief  Justice,  and  Raleigh  Gilbert,  a 
nephew  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  After  building  a  fort 
and  some  cottages,  and  sinking  a  well  which  still 
may  be  seen,  together  with  fragments  of   English 


34  ,SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

brick,  the  colonists  found  tlie  island  too  small  for  a 
settlement  and  the  -water  bitter,  and  so  removed  to 
the  mainland  where  they  built  a  new  fort  and  block- 
house. In  December  the  ships  sailed  for  England, 
leaving  a  little  company  of  forty-five  men  Ijetween  a 
waste  of  waters  and  an  unbroken  wilderness;  but  the 
severe  cold  and  the  unfriendly  Indians  were  too 
much  for  even  the  splendid  courage  of  these  men, 
and  drove  them  back  to  England  in  a  vessel  of  their 
own  handiwork,  the  first  vessel  built  on  this  conti- 
nent, leaving  only  the  traces  of  their  building  and 
the  memory  of  one  winter  when  the  children  of  the 
Church,  first  upon  the  ground  in  the  Xorth  as  well 
as  in  the  South,  worshipped  God  in  the  great  wilder- 
ness, speaking  to  Him  in  the  words  of  the  English 
Prayer  Book. 

One  of  the  noblemen  who  for  long  years  strug- 
gled constantly  to  make  English  settlements  in  the 
northern  part  of  this  country  Avas  Sir  Ferdinando 
Gorges,  who.  in  1620,  from  King  James,  and  again 
in  1639,  from  King  Charles  I.,  olitained  a  charter 
of  the  Province  of  Maine,  making  him  the  proprietor 
and  governor  of  a  great  extent  of  territory  and  many 
islands.  In  all  this  province,  the  government  and 
articles  of  Faith  of  the  Church  of  England  were 
established  by  law;  and  Americans  should  justly  re- 
member with  deep  gratitude  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges, 
the  devoted  Churchman,  the  man  kind  to  all  who, 
faithful  to  his  king,  died,  fighting,  at  the  age  of 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  AMERICA  35 

seventy-four,  end  who  by  God's  grace  established  the 
old  Faith  in  the  northern  part  of  our  country.  His 
son,  Thomas,  came  over  as  deputy-governor  and 
settled  at  York,  where,  in  1642,  rose  a  little  city 
called  Gorgiana. 

In  1643,  another  portion  of  Maine,  called  Lygo- 
nia,  was  purchased  by  Col.  Alexander  Rigby,  a  gen- 
tleman of  education,  wealth,  infliience,  and  piety, 
who  became  the  friend  of  the  poor  and  of  the  clergy, 
and  made  generous  exertions  to  give  religious  in- 
struction to  the  people  of  his  province,  the  islanders, 
and  the  fishermen. 

Among  the  pioneer  workers  of  the  Church  in 
New  England  was  the  Rev.  Richard  Gibson,  who,  in 
1637,  settled  as  the  first  rector  on  .Richmond's 
Island,  Maine,  where  probably  also  a  church  was 
built.  In  1640,  Mr.  Gibson  removed  to  Portsmoutli, 
to  become  the  first  rector  of  the  Church  in  ISTew 
Hampshire,  at  a  dark  and  troubled  time  when  the 
Church  was  persecuted  in  New  England  and  her 
Sacraments  were  forbidden  by  law.  So  it  was  that 
Mr.  Gibson  was  siimmoned  before  the  court  as  a 
criminal,  because  he  baptized  cliildren  on  the  Isles 
of  Shoals,  and  for  the  offence  of  "being  wholly  ad- 
dicted to  the  discipline  of  the  English  Church,"  and 
because  "he  did  marry  and  baptize"  he  was  thrown 
into  prison. 

Mr.  Gibson's  successor  at  Richmond's  Island  was 
the  Rev.  Robert  Jordan,  "a  gentleman  equal  to  any 


36  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

in  Boston,  and  a  divine  of  the  Cluireh  of  England,"' 
who  came  to  this  country  in  1640.  He  was  a  man 
"of  great  parts,"  active,  enterprising,  and  "by  educa- 
tion placed  above  the  people  about  him.'"  He  was 
faithful  to  his  calling,  and  journeyed  through  the 
wilderness  from  place  to  place,  carrying  tlie  grace 
and  comfort  of  the  Sacraments  to  the  scattered  set- 
tlers, many  of  whom  were  Church  people.  For  this, 
and  for  baptizing  children,  he,  like  Mr.  Gibson,  was 
called  before  the  court  and  imprisoned ;  but,  when  he 
was  freed,  he  continued  to  be  true  to  his  office,  and 
his  descendants  have  to-day  a  precious  memorial  of 
liis  faithfulness  in  the  little  silver  christening  basin 
which,  250  years  ago,  held  the  pure  water  "sancti- 
fied to  the  mystical  washing  away  of  the  sins"  of 
many  children  born  in  the  western  wilderness,  far 
from  the  parish  churches  of  their  fathers,  but  still 
through  baptism,  in  the  heart  of  that  dear  Church. 

Mr.  Jordan's  talents  and  his  determination,  per- 
severance, and  self-reliance  were  of  great  service  to 
the  people  of  Maine  in  other  ways  than  the  minis- 
trations of  the  Church;  he  Avas  prominent  in  busi- 
ness affairs  of  the  district,  and  conducted  difficult 
enterprises  and  administered  important  trusts  in  a 
country  largely  unsettled  and  in  terror  of  hostile  In- 
dians, who  destroyed  his  own  lionse,  from  wliicli  his 
family  barely  escaped. 

This  good  man's  sound  judgment  and  elevatioii 
above  the  superstition  of  tlie  age  are  believed  to  have 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  37 

saved  Maine,  at  a  critical  moment,  from  the  witch- 
craft madness.  In  the  days  of  the  delusion  of  the 
Salem  witches,  a  man  whose  "way  was  contrary  to 
the  Gospel  of  (^'hrist'"  hoarded  at  the  house  of  Good- 
man Bayly,  near  the  rector's  farm.  One  day  Bayly's 
wife  gravely  told  her  boarder  that  he  must  reform  or 
leave  her  house,  and  he  was  very  angry;  and,  as  a 
cow  of  the  rector's  chanced  to  die  Just  then,  and  this 
man  knew  that  Goody  Bayly  was  to  go  that  way 
on  a  journey,  he  declared  to  ^Ir.  Jordan's  servant 
that  the  cow  had  been  bewitched,  and  that  by  burn- 
ing the  carcass  the  witch  would  be  brought  to  the 
place.  So  they  burned  the  carcass,  and  lo,  up  the 
road  came  Goody  Bayly ! 

Wonder  and  excitement  were  great  among  the 
people,  and  poor  Goody  Bayly  was  "called  up''  for  a 
witch.  But  the  rector  interposed,  explaining  that 
the  cow  had  died  because  of  the  negligence  of  his 
servant,  who,  to  cover  his  own  fault,  had  been  ready 
to  attribute  the  misfortune  to  witchcraft,  and  that 
Goody  Bayly's  lioarder  had  known  that  she  was  to 
come  that  way,  and  without  permission  had  burned 
the  cow  to  suit  the  time  of  her  coming.  Tims  he 
unravelled  wliat  had  seemed  a  great  mar\'el,  exposed 
the  wicked,  delivered  the  innocent,  and  by  his  clear- 
headed common-sense  and  justice  averted  from 
Maine  the  infamy  and  pitiful  sufferings  of  a  witch- 
craft persecutioD,  causing  that  state  to  stand  luiiii- 
jiuiis  in  the  dark  days  of  the  strange  delusion  which 


38  SO.ME  .MEMORY  DAYS 

shadowed  other  parts  of  the  young  country  with 
dreadful  gloom;  for  in  Maine  no  poor  soul  was  ever 
again  "called  up"  for  witchcraft. 

Captain  John  Mason,  who  was  associated  witli 
Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges  in  the  grant  of  the  great 
Province  of  Maine,  took  for  his  share  the  part  which 
is  now  New  Hampshire,  and  sent  out  a  colony  which 
settled,  probahly,  in  May,  1623,  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Piscataqua  River.  When  the  colonists  in  their 
high-sterned  ship  sailed  on  the  bright  May  morning 
into  the  wide  river,  with  islands  green  to  the  water's 
edge  "like  emerald  bubbles  floating  on  the  sea,'"  and 
stately  pines  and  oaks  and  flowering  shrubs,  and 
the  wild  birds  singing  welcome,  and  the  tmiid  deer 
looking  out  from  their  covert,  all  seemed  new  and 
wonderful  and  grand,  and  they  were  glad  to  find 
such  a  peaceful  haven  after  the  fogs  and  storms  of 
the  voyage.  It  is  said  that  they  met  the  Indians  in 
council,  and,  in  exchange  for  beads,  knives,  and  fish- 
hooks, obtained  their  good-will  and  permission  to 
take  all  the  land  that  they  could  use.  The  beautiful 
country  seemed  like  an  old-world  land  to  these  set- 
tlers, who,  moreover,  found  abundance  of  food  in  tlie 
cod  from  the  ocean,  salmon  and  trout  from  the 
brooks,  clams  from  the  shore,  and  game  from  the 
forest.  The  men  were  self-reliant  and  law-abiding 
and  able  to  found  and  govern  a  state  for  themselves 
and  their  children.  Captain  Mason  sent  out  skilled 
mechanics  to   bis   colonv  at   Dover   and    Strawberrv 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  39 

Bank  (now  Portsmouth)  and  built  there  a  large 
fortified  house  and  the  first  saw-mill  and  corn-mill 
in  New  England. 

Moreover,  manv  of  these  New  Hampshire  colon- 
ists were  Churchmen,  and  early  made  provision  for 
the  establishment  of  the  Church  at  Strawberry  Bank, 
where,  in  1640,  a  glebe  of  fifty  acres  was  deeded  to 
the  Church  wardens;  and  in  the  royal  charter  of 
New  Hami^shire  is  the  clause :  "Our  will  and  pleas- 
ure is  that  the  religion  of  the  Church  of  England 
shall  be  ever  preferred  and  established  with  as  much 
convenient  speed  as  may  be." 

So  the  Church  of  our  fathers  was  first  in  the 
field  in  New  Hampshire  as  well  as  in  Maine,  and 
one  of  our  memory  days  is  the  lovely  May  day  of 
1623,  when  Captain  Mason's  English  colonists  sailed 
up  the  Piscataqua  River,  to  plant  the  precious  seed 
of  the  Church  in  this  part  of  America,  and  built  on 
the  site  of  Portsmouth  a  "chapel  and  a  parsonage- 
house  as  a  free  and  voluntary  act." 

But  after  the  Eev.  Eicluird  CTi])son,  tlie  first  New 
Hampshire  rector,  left  Strawberry  Bank,  and  after 
the  Rev.  Robert  Jordan,  who  in  1679  was  living  in 
Great  Island,  the  only  priest  in  all  New  England, 
died,  we  do  not  know  much  about  the  Church  there, 
until  1732,  when,  under  the  auspices  of  the  English 
Missionary  Society  for  Propagating  the  Gospel  in 
Foreign  Parts,  and  with  the  help  of  two  generous 
EiTjlislimcn.  was  l)iiilt  in  PovtsuK)nth  and  named  in 


40  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

honor  of  Queen  Caroline,  old  8t.  John's  Church, 
Portsmouth,  which  stood  on  the  hill  by  the  river  on 
the  site  of  Queen's  Chapel.  Queen  Caroline  gave 
the  infant  church  a  Bible,  a  Prayer  Book,  "printed 
on  the  best  of  vellum,"  and  the  silver  Communion 
service,  which  is  used  in  St.  John's  to  this  da}'. 

The  first  rector  of  Queen's  Chapel  was  the  Rev. 
Arthur  Browne,  a  man  of  "real  culture,  unpreten- 
tious goodness,  and  eminent  worth,"  of  whom  Long- 
fellow sings  as  marrying  Governor  Wentworth  and 
his  maid,  Martha  Hilton : 

"But  I  must  mention  one,  in  bands  and  gown. 
The  rector  there,  the  Reverend  Arthur  Browne, 
Of  the  Established  Church;  with  smiling  face 
He  sat  beside  the  governor  and  said  grace." 

The  present  St.  John's  Church  was  built  just  a 
hundred  years  ago,  after  "the  holy  and  beautiful 
house  built  by  the  fathers"  had  been  destroyed  by 
fire.  Within  its  old  brick  walls  are  many  interest- 
ing articles  to  remind  us  of  the  church  in  other  days. 
The  bell,  ringing  Christmas  peals  from  the  belfry, 
was  brought  by  Sir  William  Pepperell  from  Louis- 
burg,  and  recast  by  Paul  Revere ;  upon  its  metal  are 
engraved  these  words: 

"From  Saint  John's  steeple 
T  call  the  people 
On  holy  days 
To  prayer  and  praise." 

A  carved  chair  given  by  Queen  Caroline,  and  oc- 
cupied at  one  >!ervice  by  General  Washington,  stands 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  41 

in  the  cliancel;  the  thin,  sweet  notes  of  the  old  Brat- 
tle organ  may  still  be  heard — the  organ  brought 
from  England  in  1713,  and  said  to  be  the  "first 
organ  that  ever  pealed  to  the  glory  of  God  in  this 
country."  Queen  Caroline's  Bible  and  Prayer  Book 
lie  in  glass-covered  cases,  and  the  Bible  on  the  read- 
ing-desk was  a  gift  from  the  grandson  of  the  Eev. 
Arthur  Browne;  while  in  the  chancel  stands  the 
strange  font  of  dark  porphyritic  marble,  brought  in 
1758  from  Africa,  and  upon  this,  beneath  a  fair 
M'liite  cloth,  are  placed  each  Sunday  twelve  loaves  of 
bread,  the  weekly  dole  given  out  to  the  poor  all  these 
hundred  years.  So  old  St.  John's  stands  on  its  hill 
by  the  swirling  river,  binding  new  times  to  old,  and 
calling  us  to  remember  that  nearly  three  hundred 
years  ago  the  English  settlers  at  Strawberry  Bank 
planted  there,  with  the  foundations  of  a  state,  the 
seed  of  the  Churcli  to  bless  their  children's  children. 


V. 

In  Massachusetts. 

In  very  early  clays  there  were  Churchmen  in 
Massachusetts  also.  John  ]\rorton  came  from  Eng- 
land in  1623,  bringing  thirty  servants,  with  furni- 
ture of  all  kinds,  and  cattle,  and  settled  at  Merry- 
mount,  near  Boston.  Bluff  and  merry,  but  generous, 
devout^  and  true  to  the  old  Faith,  he  lived  the  life 
of  an  English  squire,  and  read  daily  prayers  and  the 
Sunday  service  before  his  large  household,  who  cele- 
brated the  Church  festivals  and  feasted  at  Christmas 
on  abundant  roasts  of  venison  and  mince  pies. 

In  Salem,  whose  stern  people  had  turned  from 
the  Faith  of  their  fathers  and  even  had  forbidden  the 
use  of  the  Prayei-  Book,  two  brave  brothers,  Bro^AOie 
by  name,  and  called  "men  much  respected,"  refvised 
to  forsake  the  Church,  and  in  their  humble  cabins 
with  their  families  read  daily  prayers,  and  gathered 
a  company  of  their  neighbors  to  join  with  them  in 
the  dear,  familiar  worship  of  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer. 

In  these  same  days  where  now  is  Boston  a  Church 
clergAnnan,  the  Eev.  William  Blaxton,  "a  man  of  very 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  43 

loving  and  courteous  religion,"  was  quietly  living  on 
a  broad  farm  surrounded  by  pleasant  apple  orchards, 
and  having  for  neighbors  Thomas  Walford  and  Sam- 
uel Maverick,  also  Churchmen,  and  known  through 
the  then  wild  country  as  always  kind  to  strangers.     ■ 

But  on  a  memory  day  in  May,  1686,  the  first 
rector  for  Massachusetts,  the  Eev.  Mr.  Ratcliffe,  an 
Oxford  graduate,  sailed  into  Boston  harbor  on  the 
frigate  Rose,  and  on  the  following  Sunday,  May  16th, 
read  service  and  preached  in  the  Town  House,  to 
the  joy  of  many  of  the  Boston  people  who  had  been 
long  without  the  services  of  the  loved  Church  of  their 
birth,  and  who  now,  on  June  15th,  formed  the  first 
Boston  parish,  for  which  soon  was  built  the  first 
Boston  church,  "established  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
the  worship  of  God."  This  was  the  modest  firsi 
building  of  King's  Chapel,  which  was  a  missionary 
enterprise,  and  in  which  the  first  service  was  held  on 
June  30th,  1689. 

The  founders  of  the  Church  in  New  England,  like 
those  in  Virginia,  earnestly  wished  to  do  missionary 
work  among  the  Indians,  and  one  of  the  King's 
Chapel  clergy  begged  for  an  assistant  to  stay  in  Bos- 
ton while  he,  "having  learned  the  Indian  language, 
went  out  among  these  unhappy  people,  to  try  to  do 
their  poor  souls  good." 

In  1710,  King's  Chapel  was  enlarged,  and  to  it 
came  gifts  of  furnishings,  books,  and ,  Communion 
silver  from  the  English  sovereigns,  from  William  and 


44  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

Mary  to  George  III.  Its  organ  is  said  to  liave  l)eeii 
selected  by  the  great  musician  Handel,  and  the  bill 
of  lading  states  that  it  was  "shipped  by  the  grace  oJ' 
God  in  good  order."  King's  Chapel  was  the  only 
place  in  Boston  where  tlie  forms  of  the  English 
Church  could  be  seen,  and  the  same  noble  anthems 
heard  which  resounded  through  the  cathedrals  of  the 
Mother  country.  The  uniforms  of  the  little  Boston 
court  brightened  the  doorways,  and  the  escutclieons 
of  the  royal  governors  hung  against  the  pillars  of 
the  splendid  canopied  pew  in  which  sat  three  of  the 
ro)^al  governors  of  Massachusetts;  and  at  Christmas- 
time the  walls  were  garlanded  with  evergreen,  and 
joyous  hymns  for  the  first  time  broke  upon  the  silence 
of  the  day  in  New  England. 

In  Christmas  week  of  1)23,  the  first  service  was 
held  in  the  second  Boston  church,  Christ  Church. 
This  church,  still  standing,  but  little  changed,  was 
considered  a  grand  building  in  its  day,  with  its  two- 
and-a-half-feet-thick  walls  and  soaring  steeple. 
Within  are  balconies  supported  by  pillars  and  arches, 
deep  \\'indow-seats  and  lofty  windows,  each  contain- 
ing seventy-five  tiny  panes  of  ancient,  greenish-white 
glass.  The  chancel  wall  is  adorned  -wdth  tablets  on 
which  are  traced  in  golden  letters  the  Creed,  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  and  Scripture  passages  on  which  many 
looked  and  found  comfort  in  the  trying  times  of  the 
old  colonial  days.  Four  curious  wooden  images  blow- 
ing vigorously  on  long  pipes  adorn  the  organ-loft, 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA.  45 

;ind  the  worn  silver  tankards  and  chalices  of  the  Com- 
munion service  bear  inscriptions  to  the  effect  that 
they  are  the  "gift  of  King  George  II.  of  England  to 
his  faithful  subjects.*'  The  old  hour-glass  puli)it  is 
gone,  but  the  oldest  chime  of  bells  in  this  country 
still  rings  in  wonderfully  SM'eet  tones  on  Sundays  and 
at  Christmas,  when  thousands  of  persons  listen  with 
delight  to  hear  the  silvery  bells  calling  joyously,  as 
they  have  done  since  Boston  was  a  little  English 
colonial  town  in  1744,  "0  come,  all  ye  faithful,  come, 
let  us  adore  Him." 

The  iirst  rector  of  Christ  Church  congregation, 
which  was  called  "very  devout  and  conscientious," 
was  the  Rev.  Timothy  Cutler,  a  Harvard  graduate, 
afterward  President  of  Yale  College,  and  a  man  of 
"profound  learning  and  dignity."  About  the  year 
1710,  when  Mr.  Cutler  was  a  youth,  and  far  away 
from  the  Church,  a  Prayer  Book  was  given  him  by  a 
Ml".  Smithson,  whose  name  should  be  among  our  hon- 
ored memory  names  because  of  this  one  kind  mission- 
ary deed  which  led  to  great  results :  for  young  Tim- 
othy Cutler  read  his  Prayer  Book  to  good  pur])ose, 
learning  to  love  it  and  the  Church  to  which  it  be- 
longed, and  he  gathered  a  group  of  men  wlio,  for 
some  years,  quietly  studied,  seeking  the  truth,  and 
finding  it  at  last  in  the  C'hurch  of  all  Christian  ages, 
rt  was  a  wonderful  day  for  tliis  good  man  when,  after 
learning  to  love  the  Church  whose  outward  form  he 
had  never  seen,  ho  canio  to  his  first  service.     In  his 


46  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

diary  for  that  clay  is  this  entry:  "I  first  went  to 
Church.  How  amiable  are  Thy  tabernacles,  0  Lord 
God  of  hosts!"  And  of  his  first  Communion,  he 
wrote:  "How  devout,  grand,  and  venerable  every  part 
of  the  service  is,  as  becoming  so  awful  a  mystery." 

Cutler  and  two  of  his  friends  went  to  England 
for  ordination,  and  on  one  of  our  memory  days, 
Passion  Sunday,  1723,  in  the  Church  of  St.  Martin's- 
in-the-Field,  London,  were  advanced  to  the  priesthood. 
Then  they  returned  to  America,  Mr.  Johnson  to  go 
to  Stratford,  Conn.,  for  a  long  career  of  service  and 
influence,  and  then  to  be  President  of  King's  College, 
Kew  York,  now  Columbia  University;  while  Dr.  Cut- 
ler was  called  to  the  new  Christ  Church  in  Boston. 

These  men  were  the  first  of  the  earnest,  native- 
born  American  clergy  who  in  a  few  years  taught  Nev\' 
England  the  nature  of  the  Church,  into  which  they 
drew  large  numbers  of  sober-minded,  thoughtful,  and 
devout  people. 

The  third  Boston  parish  was  Trinity,  founded  in 
1728,  and  ministered  to  first  by  one  of  the  King's 
Chapel  clergy  and  later  by  Dr.  Samuel  Parker,  in 
whose  long,  faithful  pastorate  came  the  Eevolution, 
with  its  "days  that  tried  men's  souls,"  and  especially 
Churchmen's  souls,  who  were  distracted  between  their 
duty  to  their  king  and  to  their  country.  In  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war.  Dr.  Parker  called  together  his  people, 
and  explaining  how  he  would  no  longer  be  permitted 
to  use  the  prayers  for  the  king,  secured  their  consent 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  AMERICA  47 

to  omitting  these  for  the  sake  of  the  Church,  which 
thus  continued  in  existence  through  the  struggle,  and 
gave  to  all  the  Church  people  of  Boston  a  home, 
strength,  and  comfort  in  Trinit}^  Church. 

Among  other  old  ]\Ias3achusetts  churches  in  which 
Churchmen  still  worship  God.  are  Christ  Church, 
Cambridge,  built  in  1711:  St.  Paul's,  TSTewburyport, 
and  St.  Michael's,  Marblehead,  built  in  1714,  and 
ministered  to  at  first  by  the  chaplains  of  English 
frigates  which  touched  at  Marblehead  on  their  way 
to  Boston. 


VI. 

Other  Beginnings. 

By  1699  the  Church  people  of  Ehode  Island  had 
begun  to  hold  public  worship,  and,  being  poor  and 
scattered,  they  petitioned  the  English  government  to 
aid  them,  saying  that,  ''though  they  were  disposed  to 
do  all  they  could  toward  supporting  a  pious  minister, 
they  were  not  in  a  capacity  to  contribute  as  much 
as  was  requisite."  This  petition  to  the  King  and 
Bishop  of  London  bad  two  memorable  results:  the 
building  of  Trinity  Church,  in  Newport,  and  the  im- 
pulse it  gave  to  the  originating  of  the  venerable  mis- 
sionary society  called  the  Society  for  Propagating  tlie 
Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,  known  as  tbe  S.  P.  G.  The 
first  Trinity  Church  was  built  in  1T02;  and  in  IT'iti 
was  built  the  present  venerable  house  of  worsliip,  al- 
most unchanged  from  its  first  days,  with  its  spacious 
square  pews  furnished  like  sitting-rooms,  its  lofty  pul- 
pit, old-time  sounding-board,  and  clerk's  pew,  higb 
galleries,  and  even  the  royal  crown  of  colonial  days 
still  glittering  on  the  steeple.  In  the  soaring  pulpit 
Dean  Berkeley  often  preached,  and  in  Trinity  church- 
yard was  buried  his  little  daughter,  who  died  in 
America. 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  49 

In  170(i  was  built  the  Narragansett  church  at 
East  Greenwich,  now  the  oldest  church  building  in 
New  England.  And  in  these  long-ago  times  Church 
services  were  begun  at  St.  John's  Mission,  Providence, 
under  the  pastorate  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Checkle}^  once 
of  Boston,  who,  after  long  years  of  brave  service  as 
a  layman,  was  ordained  in  the  year  1739,  at  the  age 
of  sixty,  and  "greatly  desired  and  received  with  joy" 
at  Providence,  where  lie  labored  faithfully  for  four- 
teen years,  for  Indians  and  negroes  as  well  as  for  the 
white  people  of  his  parish. 

In  the  closing  years  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
among  certain  good  men  in  England,  lived  one.JDx- 
Bray,  whose  name  should  be  among  our  honored 
memory  names.  He  was  the  hardworking  rector  of 
a  parish  in  the  heart  of  England ;  studying  the  needs 
of  the  people,  and  grieving  at  the  ignorance  of  the 
clergy  of  the  time,  he  interested  his  Bishop  and  some 
others  of  wealth  and  generosity  in  founding  the  So- 
ciety for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Knowledge,  the 
first  purpose  of  which  was  to  furnish  religious  li- 
braries for  clergy  and  people,  and  beside,  to  provide 
libraries  for  the  Church  in  the  colonies.  In  1695  Dr. 
Bray  was  sent  by  the  Bishop  of  I^ondon  (who  was, 
in  a  way,  Bishop  of  all  the  English  colonies  in  Amer- 
ica) to  examine  the  condition  of  the  Church  in 
America.  After  five  years  of  faithful  toil,  Di-.  Bray 
returned  to  England  to  report  the  pressing  needs  of 
the   American   Church,   and.   with   his  heart   full   of 


50  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

love  for  America,  to  write  and  circulate  pamphlets 
and  letters,  to  appeal  to  Parliament  and  the  Bishops, 
to  engage  the  warm  interest  of  the  Queen,  and  finally 
to  rouse  the  good  people  of  England  to  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  first  missionary  society  of  the  English 
Church,  The  S.  P.  Ci.,  formed  by  one  hundred  of  tlk^ 
noblest  men  in  the  land,  including  the  Archl)ishop 
of  Canterbury.  The  popularity  of  the  new  society 
was  great,  and  splendid  gifts  of  money,  books, 
landed  estates,  and  even  whole  townships  came  pour- 
ing in.  All  Bishops  were  asked  to  choose  fit  persons 
for  colonial  missionaries,  men  of  prudence,  learning, 
zeal,  and  loyalty  to  the  Church,  men  who  would  be 
examples  of  piety  and  virtue  on  the  ships  which 
should  take  them,  and  who  would  endeavor  to  induce 
the  ships'  captains  to  have  daily  prayers,  men  fre- 
quent in  private  prayer,  familiar  with  the  Bible  and 
Prayer  Book,  and  ready  to  preach  against  vice,  teach 
the  nature  and  need  of  the  Sacraments,  visit  their  peo- 
ple, and  "bear  themselves  as  gentlemen  and  as  Chris- 
tians." These  men,  as  a  rule,  made  a  great  impres- 
sion by  their  high  character  and  faithful  Churchman- 
ship,  and  greatly  raised  the  zeal  and  spirit  of  the 
American  Churcli.  The  first  of  these  missionaries 
were  George  Keith,  once  a  Quaker,  and  John  Talbot, 
who  went  from  place  to  place,  and  probably  held  the 
first  Church  service  of  Connecticut  in  Xew  London, 
on  September  13,  1702,  and  soon  gathered  together  in 
Philadelphia  hundreds  for  the  Church  and  "to  build 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  AMERICA  51 

houses  for  her  worship."  Then  more  missionaries 
were  sent^,  whose  letters,  written  from  seaboard  cities, 
l)ackwoods,  and  Indian  encampments,  gave  a  vivid 
picture  of  life  in  our  Church  in  America  during  the 
seventy  3'ears'  when  such  a  nol)le  work  was  done  for  it 
by  the  venerable  society  and  its  faithful  missionaries. 
In  1729,  a  noble  and  good  friend  of  America,  one 
of  the  first  to  discern  the  future  greatness  of  this 
Western  world,  Dean  Berkeley,  came  to  N'ewport  with 
a  plan  to  establish  a  Church  college  on  the  two  foun- 
dations of  religion  and  learning.  Learned  men  of  va- 
rious religious  views  went  to  see  him  and  came  away 
impressed  in  favor  of  the  Church  that  produced  and 
held  such  a  man.  "They  went  to  see  a  philosopher 
and  found  a  Churchman."  Dean  Berkeley  was  not 
able  to  carry  out  his  plan,  but,  nevertheless,  he  accom- 
plished much  for  the  Church  which  he  loved  and 
served ;  for  he  left  his  library  of  1 ,000  books  to  Yale 
College,  and  his  farm  to  found  a  scholarship  in  the 
same  college,  and  from  this  came  a  constant  stream 
of  earnest  men  who,  influenced  by  the  spirit  of  their 
benefactor  and  his  Church  and  books,  have  moulded 
the  lives  of  many  seekers  after  truth.  Dean  Berke- 
ley's wise  counsel  also  fixed  the  union  of  religion  and 
learning  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  and  Col- 
umbia University,  and  thus  the  good  man's  wisdom 
and  love  for  the  Church  have  left  a  deep  impi-ession 
not  on  one  small  college,  but  on  three  great  univer- 
sities. 


52  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

The  Dutch  who  settled  on  Manhattan  Island  were 
not  Churclimcn,  but,,  when  in  1664  the  fleet  of  the 
Duke  of  York  dropped  anchor  in  the  hay,  bringing 
the  English  flag,  it  brought  also  the  English  Church, 
and  the  chaplain  at  once  began  to  read  pra3^ers  in  the 
little  log  chapel  of  Fort  James.  By  1690  the  Church 
in  N"ew  York  was  growing  fast  and  winning  many  of 
the  younger  Dutch  people  who  had  become  young 
Americans  and  had  learned  to  love  the  English 
tongue  and  the  English  Church;  and,  in  1697,  these 
joined  in  organizing  Trinity  parish  and  building  its 
first  church,  which  is  described  as  standing  pleasantly 
on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  with  a  churchyard,  as 
now,  on  either  side,  and  in  front,  "a  painted  paled 
fence." 

In  N"ew  Jersey  the  Eev.  George  Keith  did  nol)le 
service  for  the  Church,  holding  his  first  service  as 
mission  priest  at  Araboy.  Another  brave  missionary 
to  New  Jersey  was  the  Eev.  Thomas  Thompson,  a 
fellow  of  Christ  Church,  Cambridge,  who,  ''fired  with 
pure  zeal  for  the  work  of  God,"  left  his  high  position 
in  England  to  labor  for  years  in  America,  and  then  to 
leave  his  post  there  to  become,  in  1751,  the  first  mis- 
sionary of  the  Church  to  Africa. 

While  Trinity  and  other  parishes  in  Xew  York 
were  fast  growing,  the  Philadelphia  people  were  be- 
ginning to  hold  Church  services  in  a  wooden  shed, 
with  a  bell  swung  from  a  neighboring  tree.     Here,  in 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  53 

1700,  Christ  Church  was  organized,  and  its  brick 
church  built;  and,  in  a  short  time,  hundreds  of  the 
people  were  baptized  into  the  Church,  which  grew 
rapidly  in  Philadelphia,  greatly  helped  by  the  earnest 
labors  of  the  Rev.  George  Keith,  who,  going  from 
Philadelphia  to  England,  had  returned  to  liis  old 
home  as  one  of  the  first  missionaries  of  the  S.  P.  CI. 
In  the  year  1700.  in  the  territory  which  is  now 
the  United  States,  there  were  not  quite  sixty  clergy- 
men, and  these  were  scattered,  from  Portsmouth, 
N"ew  Hampshire,  to  Charleston,  South  Carolina ; 
there  were  a  few  substantial  brick  churches,  but  in 
country  places  were  small  log  chapels  to  which  the 
people  came  on  foot,  in  canoes,  and  on  horseback, 
from  twenty,  thirty,  and  forty  miles  away.  Prayer 
Books  were  scarce  and  costly,  and  few  of  the  smaller 
ones  found  their  way  to  the  colonies,  so  the  clerk  had 
to  make  all  the  responses,  except  tliose  the  people 
knew  by  heart.  It  was  a  day  of  small  thiugs;  still 
many  souls  in  English  America  were  finding  shelter 
and  joy  beneath  the  spreading  branches  of  the  tree 
which  had  already  grown  from  the  precious  seed 
brought  by  the  first  settlers  across  the  Atlantic,  and 
planted  by  the  broad  river  of  Virginia  and  on  tlie 
rock-bound  coast  of  Maine. 


VII. 

In  the  South. 

We  have  seen  how,  among  the  spring  flowers  of 
Virginia  and  in  the  northern  "land  of  the  pointed 
firs/'  the  first  settlers  worshipped  God  with  the 
prayers  and  Sacraments  of  the  Church  of  England, 
and  how  the  Church  was  planted  all  the  way  from 
the  Kennebec  river  in  Maine  to  the  James  in  Vir- 
ginia. The  settlement  of  this  colony  was  rapid 
after  the  self-sacrificing  people  of  Jamestown  had  ob- 
tained a  foothold;  and  a  pamphlet  printed  in  16-19," 
called  A  Perfect  Description  of  Virginia,  tells  us  that 
there  were  fifteen  thousand  English  settled  there, 
owning  twenty  thousand  oxen,  bulls  and  calves,  and 
thousands  of  sheep,  goats,  and  cows,  with  swine  and 
poultry  innumerable.  In  the  woods  were  deer  and 
many  kinds  of  game,  including  "rackoons  as  good 
meat  as  lambs,"  and  wild  turkeys  weighing-  sixty 
pounds,  beside  many  sweet  song-birds,  "most  rare- 
colored  parraketos  and  mock-birds  which  miitate  all 
other  birds'  cries,  yea,  even  owls  and  nightingales." 
There  were  fifteen  kinds  of  wild  fruit,  "rivalling  the 
fruits  of  Italv."     In  less  than  a  liundred  vears  after 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  55 

the  starving  time  at  JamestoM-n,  the  farmers  luid 
hundreds  of  acres  of  wheat,  barlej-,  and  Virginia  corn, 
"which  made  good  bread  and  furmity"  (porridge), 
and  in  their  gardens  grew  potatoes,  turnips,  carrots, 
parsnips,  onions,  articholces,  asparagus,  beans,  and 
peas,  with  herbs  and  "ph3^sic  flowers,"  flourishing 
greatly  in  the  rich  soil,  watered  with  fine  springs  and 
"wholesome  waters." 

Some  settlers  sowed  hemp  and  flax,  which  were 
spun  at  home,  and  they  kept  weavers  and  shoe- 
makers, "living  bravely"  on  their  great  plantations  of 
thousands  of  acres,  made  up  of  vast  cultivated  fields 
and  woodlands  with  noble  forest-trees.  The  rude  log- 
cabins  of  the  slaves  made  a  hamlet  near  which  were 
great  barns  and  granaries,  stables,  cattle-pens,  hen- 
coops, dove-cotes,  malt  houses,  dairy,  brick-ovens  for 
curing  ham  and  bacon,  and  sometimes  a  country 
store.  In  the  garden  grew  all  the  English  vegetables, 
besides  "roots,  herbs,  vine-fruits,  and  salad  flowers" 
peculiar  to  Virginia;  in  a  fine  orchard  grew  fruit  in 
great  variety,  and  near  the  Great  House  were  flowei-- 
beds  gay  with  color  and  vine-clad  arbors.  From  the 
porch  you  could  look  down  at  the  blue  river,  with  pin- 
naces moored  at  the  landing,  and  canoes  darting  over 
the  water.  Inside  the  house  the  rooms  were  clustered 
about  the  great  hall,  with  its  long  dining-table, 
flanked  l)y  benches  and  covered  with  brown  holland 
linen,  s;t't  with  ])ewtcv  iiiiigs  niid  platters.     Upon  the 


5G  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

^v•all  hung  family  portraits,  and  about  the  room  were 
spinning-wheels,  great  linen-chests,  guns,  swords, 
powder-horns,  saddles,  and  riding-whips,  in  cosy  con- 
fusion. Huge  logs  of  oak  and  hickory  burned  in  tlie 
fireplace,  and  at  night  the  room  was  lighted  by  flick- 
ering candles  made  of  beef-tallow,  deer-suet,  or  the 
Avax  of  myrtle  berries  which  ))urned  with  pleasant 
fragrance.  In  some  of  the  homes  were  libraries, 
sometimes  small,  but  sometimes  large  and  valuable. 

There  were  some  free  schools  founded  by  benevo- 
lent men,  of  which  the  Symms  School,  dating  from 
1636,  seems  the  earliest  recorded;  after  IGfG  the  Vir- 
ginians were  compelled  by  la^',  in  a  measure,  to  fur- 
nish primary  education.  Nor  was  the  spiritual  wel- 
fare of  the  people  neglected,  lor  there  were  some 
twenty  churches  with  ''doctrine  and  orders  of  the 
Church  of  England,  and  ministers"  livings  toward 
which  each  planter  paid  his  share,  for  in  Virginia  all 
lived  in  peace  and  love."  The  great  planters  were 
often  justices  of  the  peace,  burgesses,  and  vestrymen : 
and  on  Sundays,  they  with  their  families  went  faitli- 
fully  to  their  parish  churches,  often  starting  \ery 
early  in  the  morning  ujjon  the  long  journey,  by  boat 
on  the  tide-rivers,  or  on  horseback  upon  the  bridle- 
path through  the  deep,  shadowy  forests. 

We  remember  that  in  Xorth  Carolina  the  Church 
was  first  in  the  field,  when  Raleigh's  colony  lived  for 
a  time  on  Roanoke  Island,  where  the  first  American- 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  57 

English  baby  was  received  by  Baptism  into  the 
Household  of  God.  But  after  this  colony  was  lost 
North  Carolina  remained  for  many  years  a  frontier 
to  all  the  English  settlements,  a  wild  border-land 
where  English,  Spanish,  and  Indians  met  each  other 
in  war.  Its  settlers  lived  lonely  lives,  scattered  about 
among  the  pine  forests;  yet  to  them  also  came,  in 
1703,  a  missionary  of  the  Church  of  England. 

In  1607,  King  Charles  II.,  who  is  remembered 
in  the  name  Carolina,  granted  the  territory  of  these 
states  to  eight  lords  who  had  done  him  great  services. 
Among  these  was  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper,  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury,  in  whose  family  one  of  the  greatest  men 
of  England,  John  Locke,  lived  as  "physician,  private 
tutor,  adviser,  and  guardian  angel."  He  once  saved 
Shaftesbury's  life  by  skilful  surgery;  he  taught  the 
boy  Greek,  and  "being  so  good  a  judge  of  men  was 
believed  to  be  also  a  judge  of  women,"  and  was  en- 
trusted with  the  choosing  of  a  wife  for  his  charge,  for 
whom  he  made  the  good  selection  of  Lady  Dorothy 
Manners  of  Haddon  Hall. 

In  this  same  summer,  while  the  philosopher  was 
thus  engaged,  he  was  also  drawing  up  a  constitution 
for  the  new  colony,  Carolina,  which  was  thus  closely 
connected  in  its  beginnings  with  Englishmen  of  noble 
family  and  noble  minds. 

Already,  on  April  19th  in  1660,  which  was  also 
Maundy   Thursday,  a   company   of   English,   acconi- 


58  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

panied  by  their  chaplain,  had  landed  in  South  Caro- 
lina; and  there  is  little  doulit  but  that  the  solemn 
services  of  Good  Friday  and  the  joyous  celebration  of 
the  Easter  Festival  marked  the  occupancy  of  that 
state  by  the  English. 

In  1670  Governor  Sayle,  with  the  lirst  perma- 
nent colonists,  began  building  a  village  near  the  junc- 
tion of  the  Ashley  and  Cooper  Elvers.  This  was 
soon  afterward  removed  to  the  site  of  Charleston,  into 
Avhich  it  grew.  The  first  church,  made  of  black  cy- 
press, was  built  in  1681  upon  land  given  by  Originall 
Jackson  and  his  wife  Melicent,  who  made  the  gift, 
"being  excited  with  a  pious  zeal  for  the  propagation 
of  the  true  Christianity  which  they  professed";  and 
they  desired  that  "in  this  church  divine  service 
should  be  established  to  be  solemnly  performed  by 
Atkin  Williamson,  cleric,  and  his  heirs  and  assigns 
forever."  In  1710  this  old  St.  Philip's  church  be- 
came too  small  for  the  congregation,  who  built  the 
new  brick  St.  Philip's,  which  is  still  standing,  a  cher- 
ished memorial  of  colonial  days.  In  1751  was  built 
St.  Michael's,  which  also  to-day  is  one  of  Charleston's 
beautiful  and  honored  memorials. 

The  successor  of  St.  Philip's  first  rector  was  the 
Eev.  Mr.  Marshall,  one  of  the  many  self-sacrificing 
missionaries  who  left  honorable  positions  in  the  old 
home  for  the  sake  of  the  struggling  young  Church  in 
America.     Like  many  of  the  early  clergy  of  South 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  59 

Carolina,  he  was  a  man  of  fine  education  and  high 
character,  and  his  unusual  ability,  pure  spirit,  and 
faithful  ministry  won  the  support  of  the  Charleston 
people  and  built  up  the  Church  on  sure  foundations. 

The  missionaries  to  South  Carolina  were  sent  out 
by  the  S.  P.  G.,  not  only  to  the  white  population,  but 
also  to  convert  the  Indians  and  instruct  the  slaves, 
and  they  were  faithful  in  this  work,  toiling  sometimes 
for  years  to  prepare  these  poor  people  for  baptism, 
and  afterward  watching  over  them  with  loving  care. 
One  missionary,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Le  Jau,  was  especially 
devoted  to  this  work,  and  wrote  to  England  of  these 
people :  "The  Indians,  our  neighbors,  come  to  see  me 
and  I  admire  their  sense  of  justice  and  their  patience ; 
and  when  we  converse  with  them  in  language  they 
can  understand,  we  see  that  their  souls  are  fit  material 
which  can  be  polished."  With  a  feeble  frame  and 
suffering  with  a  painful  disease,  Dr.  Le  Jau  toiled  on, 
faithfully  visiting  his  own  flock  as  well  as  his  "In- 
dian neighbors,"  taking  great  care  to  go  to  the  sick, 
"though  not  sent  for,"  and  struggling  to  lift  up  the 
colored  slaves  of  the  colony. 

There  was  strong  interest  in  public  education  in 
South  Carolina,  and  a  number  of  free  schools  were 
established,  the  first  one  of  which  was  built  in  1711 
or  in  1712,  by  the  S.  P.  G.,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
youth  of  Charleston.  They  were  there  taught  not 
only  the   "Three   R's,"   but  also   the   "learned   Ian- 


60  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

guages,"  i.e.,  Latiu  and  Greek,  and  there  they  were  to 
be  instructed  in  the  prinqiples  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. 

1715  the  Yamassee  Indians  rose  against  the  white 
settlers,  and  the  country  missionaries  were  obliged  to 
flee  to  Charleston,  leaving  all  that  they  had  to  the 
pitiless  foe.  So  did  the  missionaries  to  our  very  own 
land  suffer,  as  our  missionaries  to  other  lands  Imve 
suffered  in  our  day. 

In  1720  the  new  royal  Governor  of  South  Caro- 
lina received  from  the  king  instructions  to  "take  es- 
pecial care"  that  God  Almighty  be  devoutly  served 
throughout  the  colony;  that  the  book  of  Common 
Prayer  be  read  each  Sunday  and  Holy  Day,  and  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  administered.  "The  Governor 
was  also  required  to  see  that  the  one  hundred  and 
thirty-one  churches  were  orderly  kept,"  and  the  min- 
isters given  a  "competent  maintenance  and  a  con- 
venient house  and  glebe;  that  schoolmasters  should 
be  provided,  and  that  vice  should  be  punished  and 
good  living  encouraged."  All  this  was  ordered  nearly 
two  hundred  years  ago,  under  the  guidance  and  pro- 
tection of  the  Church  in  South  Carolina. 

Georgia  was  the  last  settled  of  the  thirteen  orig- 
inal colonies,  and,  while  English  settlements  were 
growing  rapidly  in  America,  Georgia  was  still  a  fron- 
tier wilderness  of  woods  and  swamps,  teeming  with 
alligators  and  other  reptiles.     Much  of  the  credit  of 


OF  THE  CHrRCH  TN  AMERICA  fil 

taming  tliie  great  wilderness  and  opening  the  state  to 
settlers  is  due  to  tJie  Taliaut  General  James  Ogle- 
thorpe, who  arrived  on  the  shore  in  Januar}',  1733, 
and  purchased  from  the  Indians  a  large  tract  of  land 
upon  a  high  bluff  which  afterward  became  the  city 
of  Savannah.  General  Oglethorpe,  with  his  gallant 
Highland  regiment,  protected  the  country,  until,  in 
1748,  the  Spanish  were  defeated  and  the  frontier  be- 
came quiet. 

The  principal  object  in  settling  Georgia  was  the 
providing  an  asylum  for  the  unfortunate  but  honest 
debtors  who  for  no  fault  but  poverty  were  suffering 
in  the  wretched  English  jails,  a  place  where,  in  a 
genial  climate,  these  poor  people  might  earn  their 
daily  bread  by  labor.  The  movement  won  its  success 
largely  by  the  support  of  the  clergy  and  the  Church 
in  the  motherland.  ''Xot  for  themselves,  but  for 
others,"  Avas  the  motto  of  the  leaders  in  this  noble 
work.  The  charter  of  the  crown  lands  granted  by 
King  George  II.,  in  1733,  was  to  trustees  who  were 
mainly  Churchmen,  and  who  decreed  for  the  colonists 
liberty  of  conscience,  and  with  rare  self-denial  de- 
clared that  they  themselves  would  receive  "no  grant 
by  land  or  salary  or  fee  or  p/ofit  of  any  kind  from 
the  undertaking";  and  this  act  was  an  net  of  faith 
and  charity  of  the  Churcli  of  England. 

About  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  colonists, 
known   as   "sober,   industrious   and   moral   persons," 


62  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

were  gathered  together  in  England,  as  the  first  body 
of  Georgia  settlers.  On  one  of  our  Memory  days, 
Xovember  12th,  the  Twenty-third  Sunday  after  Trin- 
ity, in  1732,  these  colonists  met  at  the  church  in 
Milton  for  a  solemn  farewell  service  and  for  the  bless- 
ing of  the  Holy  Communion,  praying  "God,  their 
refuge  and  strength,  to  hear  them,  and  to  grant  that 
what  they  asked  faithfully,  they  might  obtain  effec- 
tually." Never  would  they  join  again  in  the  prayers 
of  the  Church  in  the  old  home,  yet  the  Church  was 
to  go  with  them  to  the  new  home  beyond  the  ocean, 
for  with  them  went  a  chaplain,  the  Rev.  Henry  Her- 
bert, who,  without  fee  or  reward,  gave  his  life  to  these 
poor  people  in  the  spirit  of  the  Master  whom  he 
served. 

The  colony  landed  on  a  pine-covered  bluff  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Savannah  Eiver,  in  January,  1733, 
and  made  the  next  Sunday,  Sexagesima,  a  day  of 
thanksgiving  for  their  safe  voyage  across  the  winter 
seas  in  their  little  ship,  the  Annie,  which  brought 
with  the  colonists  a  precious  freight  of  Bibles,  Prayer 
Books,  Catecliisms,  books  of  devotion,  and  a  religious 
library.  Thus  the  settlement  of  Georgia  began  guided 
and  blessed  by  the  teaching  and  the  prayers  of  the 
Church.  The  first  chaplain,  Dr.  Herbert,  after  only 
three  months  of  service  in  the  colony,  was  succeeded 
by  the  Eev.  John  Wesley,  then  an  enthusiastic  young 
clergyman  of^the  Church  of  England,  avIio  gave  up 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  AMERICA  G3 

brilliant  opportunities  at  home  to  engage  in  hard  and 
self-sacrificing  missionary  work  among  the  poor  peo- 
ple in  the  Georgia  wilderness.  Thus,  in  about  a  cen- 
tury and  a  quarter  from  the  May  day  A^-hen  the  first 
Church  service  was  read  beneath  the  trees  of  the 
.Tamestown  forest,  the  precious  seed  of  thi;  Church  of 
England,  brought  by  the  A'irginia  settlei-s;  had  taken 
root  in  the  thirteen  English  culonies  of  America. 


VIII. 

A  Group  of  Early  Missionaries. 

We  have  seen  how,  in  the  very  first  years  of  the 
settlement  of  America,  there  were  English  clergymen 
who  rejoiced  to  give  up  all  for  the  cause  of  Christ  in 
the  New  World,  where  they  ministered  both  to  the 
settlers  and  to  the  Indians:  Master  Wolf  all  in  the 
snow  and  ice  of  the  far  North;  the  priest  who,  at 
Eoanoke  Island,  baptized  the  Indian  chief  Mateo  and 
baby  Virginia  Dare;  the  devoted  Richard  Seymour, 
of  Popham's  Maine  colony;  the  saintly  Robert  Hunt 
of  Jamestown ;  Whittaker  of  Virginia,  and  the  perse- 
cuted Richard  Gibson  and  Robert  Jordan  of  the 
Maine  coast. 

The  first  missionary  to  Maryland  was,  probably, 
the  Rev.  Richard  James,  who,  zealous  for  the  exten- 
sion of  the  Church,  came  in  1629  to  Kent  Island  near 
the  present  city  of  Annapolis.  In  1650,  the  Rev. 
William  Wilkinson,  with  his  family  and  servants, 
settled  in  a  forest  glade  of  the  Patuxent,  and  there 
won  for  himself  and  for  the  Church  the  regard  of  the 
pioneers,  "gaining  by  his  integrity  the  care  of  the 
orphan,  and  making  his  home  a  refuge  for  the  sick 


OF  THE  CHURCH  TX  AMERICA  05 

and  dying,"  while  he  went  about  doing  good  to  the 
lonely,  scattered  people  in  the  wilderness. 

In  1696  the  Eev.  Hugh  Jones,  ''a  faithful, 
learned,  and  devoted  man,"  came  to  Maryland.  He 
left  to  become  a  professor  in  the  College  of  William 
and  Mary,  doing  for  sixty-five  years  a  double  service 
for  the  Church  in  the  new  land,  adding  to  pastoral 
duties  the  instruction  of  the  young,  and  gaining  the 
name  of  being  a  "man  of  earnest  piety,  sound  learn- 
ing, and  devotion." 

The  Rev.  George  Eoss,  sent  out  by  the  S.  P.  G. 
in  1705,  went  on  a  famous  missionary  journey  with 
the  governor  of  Pennsylvania,  and  in  one  week's  time 
he  baptized  more  than  a  hundred  persons.  His  son, 
another  George  Ross,  was  a  devoted  patriot  and  a 
signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

The  Rev.  Jacob  Henderson  was  a  missionary  in 
Delaware  and  Maryland,  and  l^iilt  a  chapel  on  his 
pwn  farm. 

To  South  Carolina  came  the  Rev.  Gideon  John- 
stone, rector  of  St.  Philip's,  Charleston,  and  the  Rev. 
William  Gay,  missionary  to  the  great  St.  Helen's 
parish,  which  included  the  territory  of  the  Yamassee 
Indians.  Having  no  church  building,  he  went  about 
untiringly,  conducting  divine  service  and  administer- 
ing the  Sacraments  in  the  lonely  homes  of  the  plant- 
ers, barely  escaping  with  his  life  in  a  terrible  Indian 
massacre.  He  spent  his  later  years  as  rector  of  St.  An- 


66  SOME  ME:M0RY  DAYS 

drew's,    thirteen   miles   from    Chaiiestou,    where   he 
gathered  throngs  of  worshippers  into  the  Church. 

The  Eev.  James  Honevman,  missionary  of  the 
S.  P.  G.,  during  forty-five  years  worked  devotedly  for 
the  Church  at  Newport,  E.  I.,  making  also  many 
missionar}'  tours  in  the  country  settlements,  which  he 
longed  to  have  "beautiful  nurseries  of  the  Church." 
He  was  an  "excellent  scholar,  an  accomplished  gentle- 
man, sound  and  strong  in  the  faith,  yet  holding  in 
love  all  followers  of  Christ."  A  prominent  Ehode 
Island  missionary  was  the  Eev.  Eobert  McSparran, 
who,  after  being  ordained  by  the  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbur}'  in  1720,  went  to  the  mission  field  of  Bristol 
and  the  surrounding  towns  in  Ebode  Island,  where  he 
soon  gathered  three  hundred  persons  into  the  Church. 
He  worked,  meantime,  in  Connecticut  also,  where  his 
influence  won  for  that  state  her  first  missionary,  the 
Eev.  Samuel  Seabury,  father  of  the  first  Bishop  of 
Connecticut.  A  book  written  by  Dr.  McSparran 
gives  us  some  notion  of  the  hardships  of  life  in 
America  as  it  seemed  in  those  days  to  the  English. 
The  book  is  called,  it  is  l)elievcd  by  the  publisher, 
"America  Dissected,"  and  the  sub-title  sets  forth  the 
"intemperance  of  the  climates,  excessive  heat  and 
cold,  and  sudden  violent  changes,  terrible  murderous 
thunder  and  lightnings,  bad  and  unwholesome  air  de- 
structive to  human  bodies,  badness  of  money,  danger 
from  enemies,  but  ahove  all  to  the  soiils  of  the  poor 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  67 

people  that  remove  thither  from  the  multifarious  pes- 
tilent heresies  of  those  parts,  published  as  a  caution 
to  unsteady  people  wlio  may  be  tempted  to  leave  their 
native  country." 

For  half  a  century  the  rector  of  St.  Michael's, 
Bristol,  E.  I.,  was  the  Rev.  John  Usher  of  the  Har- 
vard class  of  1719.  His  son,  whose  baptism  is  the 
first  recorded  act  of  the  father  upon  his  entrance  into 
his  charge,  was  graduated  from  Harvard  in  174:3,  and 
though  a  lawyer,  when  his  father  died,  as  no  clergy- 
man was  at  hand,  he  assembled  the  scattered  congre- 
gation and  held  together  the  parish.  He  officiated 
as  lay  reader  many  years,  until  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
one  he  received  Holy  Orders  from  the  first  American 
Bishop,  and  continued  in  the  parish  which  was  so 
truly  his  for  God's  cause,  working  there  always  with 
great  piety  and  untired  devotion  to  the  Church. 

Henry  Caner  was  a  student  at  Yale  College,  where 
Rector  Cutler  made  his  declaration  for  the  Church, 
and  the  seed  of  his  courage  and  devotion  to  truth  fell 
on  good  soil  in  the  youth,  who,  immediately  after 
graduation,  began  to  read  the  Church  service  at  Fair- 
field. When  he  had  obtained  Orders,  he  was  ap- 
pointed by  tlie  S.  P.  G.  missionary  to  this  same  town, 
where  he  worked  faithfully,  winning  many  to  the 
Church,  until  he  was  called  to  King's  Chapel,  the 
leading  parish  of  Xew  England.  Here,  also,  under 
his  ministry  the  Church  gained  greatly  in  numbers 


fis  SOME  ME^rrmv  days 

and  in  honor,  wliile  lie  gained  the  deep  affection  o|' 
his  parishioners  and  the  townspeople  in  general. 

The  Rev.  Arthur  Browne,  who  was  ordained  by 
the  Bishop  of  London  in  1729,  was  first  sent  to 
King's  Chapel,  now  St.  John's  Church,  Providence, 
and  afterward  gave  thirty-seven  years  of  service  to 
St.  John's  parish.  Portsmouth,  where  lie  was  lionored 
and  beloved. 

The  Rev.  Thomas  Cradock,  who  left  all  in  the 
home  country  to  go  to  a  frontier  post  in  the  Maryland 
wilderness,  even  after  his  limbs  were  helpless  by  dis- 
ease, was  carried  regularly  to  church,  and,  set  in  his 
accustomed  place,  officiated  at  the  services. 

The  Rev.  Thomas  Bacon,  another  Maryland  mis- 
sionary, labored  zealously  for  the  poor  colored  folk 
of  the  colony,  saying  that  he  found  them  as  sheep 
without  a  shepherd,  living  in  ignorance  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  considered  them  a  part  of  the  flock  which 
God  had  j^laced  under  his  care.  He  taught  them  Iw 
friendly  conversation  and  advice  when  he  met  them 
on  the  way,  and  had  services  for  them,  and  visited 
them  in  sickness.  This  faithful  priest  also  sought  to 
educate  and  improve  the  condition  of  the  poor  white 
people,  and,  securing  the  aid  of  friends,  he  estab- 
lished a  free  school,  the  brick  building  of  which  is 
still  standing,  a  memorial  of  the  Christian  charity  of 
the  good  missionary. 

To  Georgia  the  ardent  young  missionary.  John 


UKv.  JOHN  \\Ksr.i:v. 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  69 

Wesley,  was  sent,  to  ininister  to  the  spiritual  needs 
of  the  colony,  speeded  on  his  way  by  the  prayers  of 
his  devont  widowed  mother,  who  said,  "Had  I  twenty 
sons,  I  should  rejoice  to  have  them  all  missionaries, 
though  I  should  never  see  them  again." 

John  Wesley  and  his  brother  Charles  set  sail,  be- 
ginning the  voyage  with  prayers  and  the  Sacrament, 
and  saying  that  their  whole  motive  in  going  was  the 
glory  of  God.  On  Quinquagesima  Sunday,  ]\Iareli 
7,  1736,  Mr.  Wesley  began  his  ministrations  in  Sa- 
vannah, establishing  many  Church  services  in  Eng- 
lish, German,  French,  and  Italian,  that  he  migbt 
reach  the  people  of  various  nationalities,  and  studying 
Spanish  that  he  might  converse  with  the  Jews  of  the 
town.  Also  he  walked  many  miles  through  swamps 
and  thickets  to  distant  plantations,  in  order  to  min- 
ister to  their  inhabitants,  often  on  these  Journeys  ly- 
ing all  night  out-of-doors,  exposed  to  storms  and  des- 
titute of  food.  He  taught  the  children  of  his  flock 
to  read  and  write,  and  catechised  them  twice  a  day, 
and  on  Sundays  in  public  before  the  congi'egation. 

In  later  years,  tlie  Rev.  John  Wesley  and  his 
brother  gathered  about  themselves  a  new  and  inde- 
pendent religious  society,  but  we  ai'e  glad  to  remem- 
ber that  it  was  as  sons  of  the  Church  that  they  did 
their  first  missionary  work  in  America;  and  John 
\resley.  when  a  very  old  man,  declared  that  he  was 
and  had  always  been  a  child  of  ilie  Chui'cb  of  Eng- 
land, 


70  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

Another  Georgia  missionary  sent  out  by  the 
S.  P.  G.  was  the  Eev.  George  Whitefield,  who  also 
joined  a  new  religious  body  later,  but  Avho  began  his 
missionary  work  as  a  minister  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. He  was  a  famous  preacher,  who  drew  great 
crowds  and  touched  the  hearts  of  all  who  heard  him ; 
yet  this  young  man,  before  whom  great  honors  seemed 
to  lie  in  England,  turned  aside  from  all  these  to  min- 
ister to  a  tew  colonists  on  the  edge  of  the  great  wilder- 
ness in  America. 

It  was  a  fair  May  day,  Rogation  Sunday  in  1738, 
when  Wliitefield  came  to  the  Church  in  Savannah, 
warmly  welcomed  by  the  people,  who  were  glad  to 
have  a  pastor  once  more.  On  the  next  day,  he  began 
to  read  "Publick  Prayers  and  to  expound  the  Second 
Lesson";  and,  in  a  few  weeks,  he  was  preaching  to 
large  congregations,  visiting  from  house  to  house, 
catechising  and  teaching,  and  gaining,  by  his  faith- 
fulness and  devotion,  happy  results  for  the  Church 
in  Georgia. 

By  unwearied  efforts  he  collected  more  than  a 
thousand  pounds,  and  also  secured  a  grant  of  five 
hundred  acres  of  land  for  an  orphans'  home  which  he 
longed  to  found.  The  orphans  were  at  first  sheltered 
in  a  temporaiy  building,  and  together  with  these,  the 
children  of  the  colonists  were  gathered  for  free  in- 
struction, while  an  infirmary  was  established  wherein 
the  sick  were  cared  for  without  charge.    On  the  Feast 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  AMERICA  71 

of  the  Anuunciation,  1740,  the  first  brick  of  "Great 
House"  was  laid,  and  "with  assurance  of  faith,  the 
home  was  called  Bethesda,  in  the  hope  that  that 
might  be  a  house  of  mercy  to  many,  whose  founda- 
tion was  laid  in  Georgia  in  the  name  of  our  dear 
Jesus." 

In  this  old-time  missionary  school  the  children 
were  aroused  by  a  bell  ringing  at  sunrise,  and  in  their 
sleeping  rooms  they  prayed  and  sang  a  hymn,  then 
went  downstairs  to  bathe,  and  then,  at  the  call  of  the 
bell,  to  go  to  public  worship.  After  breakfast  came 
work  in  the  trade-schools,  or  lessons,  and  more  pray- 
ers. Before  and  after  dinner  the  children  sang  a 
hymn,  and  they  had  a  recreation  hour  Ijefore  after- 
noon school,  which  was  followed  by  pu1)lic  prayers 
and  supper.  At  bedtime  the  little  pupils  went  to 
their  rooms  attended  by  the  teachers,  who  prayed 
privately  with  them.  On  Sundays  all  dined  on 
cold  meat,  prepared  the  day  before,  in  order  that 
none  should  be  kept  from  public  worship,  which  was 
attended  four  times,  the  children  "between-whilcs 
spending  the  time  in  reading." 

So,  in  these  old  clays  in  Georgia,  good  missionary 
work  was  done  for  poor  and  ignorant  children  and 
for  the  sick,  beside  that  work  which  is  the  mission- 
ary's first  care — the  ministering  to  the  spiritual  needs 
of  the  people. 


IX. 

The  Church  and  the  Nation. 

The  history  of  the  Church  in  the  United  States 
is  closely  bound  up  with  the  history  of  the  nation. 
We  have  seen  how  many  of  the  original  settlements 
were  distinetivoly  Church  colonies  and  how  the  first 
representative  Congress  met  in  the  first  church  at 
Jamestown.  Wlien,  in  1699,  the  seat  of  government 
was  ^emo^■ed  to  Williamsburg,  where  the  House  of 
Burgesses  met,  Bruton  Church  became  the  court 
church  of  colonial  Virginia,  and  a  part  of  it  was 
built  with  public  money  by  the  House  of  Burgesses. 
There  the  Governor,  his  Council,  and  the  House  of 
Burgesses  attended  Divine  service,  the  Governor  occu- 
pying his  elevated  pew,  canopied  with  gold-em- 
broidered red  silk.  The  present  Bniton  Church  was 
built  in  IT  15,  and  contains,  among  other  articles 
brought  from  Jamestown  it  is  believed,  the  baptismal 
font,  the  first  in  the  United  States.  This  old  churcli 
has  been  restored,  and  in  the  work  Massachusetts 
and  Virginia  clasped  hands,  as  in  the  old  days 
of  the  Revolution,  when  John  Adams,  a  Massachu- 
setts man,  urged  that  Washington,  a  Virginia  man, 


AN 

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IIISTOKIC 
(jL'ortic    111 
Chiircli.  Mount  Holly.  X 
at    Christ    Clnirch,    ('< 


FOX 'I'. 

lo    SI.    Andrew's 
.1.     -Now  in  us<: 
hunbus,    Ky.  I 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  A^ilERICA  73 

should  be  chosen  for  the  chief  post  in  the  great 
struggle.  King  Edward  of  England  gave  a  memorial 
Bible,  made  under  the  direction  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  and  which  rests  upon  a  lectern  given 
by  President  Eoosevelt  to  the  restored  church.  The 
Bishop  of  London  was  invited  to  preach  the  conse- 
cration sermon,  because,  when  the  church  was  built, 
all  colonial  churches  were  in  the  care  of  the  Bisho]) 
of  London. 

In  this  church  worshipped  live  of  our  Presidents, 
when  they  were  students  at  the  College  of  William 
and  Mary,  or  members  of  the  House  of  Burgesses: 
Washington,  whose  name  appears  eleven  times  in  the 
parish  register;  Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe,  and 
Tyler.  Here  also  worshipped  Chief  Justice  Marshall. 
Patrick  Henry,  Eandolph,  Benjamin  Harrison,  the 
Lees,  and  General  Winfield  Scott. 

The  very  constitutions  of  the  Church  and  of  tlic 
country  were  "rocked  in  the  same  cradle,"'  for,  in  tlu- 
same  year,  1;80,  and  in  the  same  state-house  at  Phila- 
delphia, called  the  "Cradle  of  Liberty,*'  were  ratified 
the  Constitution  of  the  T/nited  States  and  that  of  the 
Church,  now  independent  of  England;  and  many  ol' 
the  same  men  were  in  boih  conventions.  Thirty-four 
of  the  fifty-five  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  ln(]e- 
pendence  were  Churchmen,  and  perhaps  for  this  rea- 
son tlie  organization  of  the  Church  and  the  nation 
are  very  similar.     In  the  Cliur-'h  are  the  Bishops,  tlu; 


74  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

Cathedral,  the  House  of  Bishops,  and  House  of  Depu- 
ties, while,  corresponding  to  these  in  the  State,  are 
the  Governor,  the  State-house,  the  Senate,  and  House 
of  Representatives.  The  nation  is  a  group  of  states 
welded  into  a  union,  and  the  Church  is  a  group  of 
dioceses  welded  together;  and  the  Church  has  ever 
given  noble  help  in  establishing,  organizing,  and  pre- 
serving the  United  States.  So,  if  we  are  worthy  the 
inheritance  we  have  received  in  both  our  Church  and 
our  nation,  and  if  we  faithfully  exercise  our  privilege 
of  membership  in  both,  we  shall  have  a  spirit  of  deep 
gratitude  to  the  self-sacrificing  fathers  of  our  country 
and  our  Church,  and  to  God  who  has  graciously  given 
increase  to  their  labors;  and  thankful  as  Churchmen 
that  the  early  settlers  planted  in  this  dear  land  the 
precious  seed  of  the  Church,  we  shall  rejoice  to  join 
in  the  great  offerings  which  are  to  extend  in  other 
lands  this  same  Church,  first  established  in  this 
continent  by  the  Jamestown  colonists. 

During  the  Revolution,  Patrick  Henry,  General 
Harry  Lee,  Randolph,  the  Morrises,  Pinckney,  Liv- 
ingston, and  many  others  whose  names  rang  through 
two  continents,  were  working,  planning,  and  praying 
in  the  Church  which  gave  so  many  high-souled 
leaders  to  the  American  side  in  the  great  struggle. 
And  General  Washington,  baptized  in  the  Church. 
and  a  devout  communicant,  prepared  himself  for  tin- 
almost  crushing  1)urdens  of  his  higli  ])Osition  by  seek- 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  75 

ing  the  strength  of  God  in  His  Church.  In  the  year 
of  the  battles  of  Concord  and  Bunker  Hill,  just  be- 
fore Washington  went  to  Massachusetts  to  take  com- 
mand of  the  colonial  amiy,  he  made  this  entry  in  his 
diary :  "Williamsburg,  June  1,  1775.  Went  to 
church  and  fasted  all  day."  And  throughout  the 
struggle  Washington  was  ever  true  to  his  Church. 
Some  of  us  have  looked  with  awe  and  reverence  at 
the  very  places  where  he  knelt,  humbly  seeking  wis- 
dom from  God  in  many  parish  churches  of  the  land ; 
in  Christ  Church,  Cambridge,  where  he  worshipped 
at  the  beginning  of  the  years  of  stress;  St.  John's, 
Portsmouth;  Trinity,  Newport;  Christ  Church, 
Philadelphia,  and  others  in  the  Middle  and  Southern 
states,  besides  the  old  Bruton  church  and  the  home 
church  of  his  later  years  in  Alexandria,  where  he  was 
churchwarden  and  vestryman,  chosen  as  being  one  of 
the  "twelve  most  able  and  discreet  men  of  the  par- 
ish." 

M^ny  of  the  Church  clergymen  took  the  American 
side  in  the  great  struggle.  The  Rev.  Henry  Purcell 
of  South  Carolina  became  the  chaplain  of  a  regiment ; 
the  Rev.  Robert  Smith  (afterward  first  Bishop  of 
South  Carolina)  served  as  a  soldier  in  the  American 
ranks;  Dr.  Muhlenberg  donned  a  soldier's  uniform, 
and  putting  his  gown  over  it,  preached  an  earnest 
sermon  on  the  duty  of  the  hour,  then,  laying  off  his 
gown,  marched  out  of  church,  stood  at  the  door  as  a 


19  SOME  MEilORY  DAYS 

recruiting  sergeant,  and  enlisted  a  ))attalion  of  con- 
tinental troops  on  the  spot.  Dr.  Provoost  of  Ne\r 
York  was  an  ardent  patriot,  and  Dr.  White  (after- 
ward Bishop  ^Vhite)  became  chaplain  of  the  Conti- 
nental Congress. 

At  the  first  meeting  of  the  Continental  Congress, 
Peyton  Randolph,  a  Churchman,  was  chosen  presi- 
dent, and  Samuel  Adams,  who  was  an  oj'ponent  of 
the  Church,  yet  made  the  motion  that  the  inaugura- 
tion of  the  cause  of  the  colonies  should  be  by  the  use 
of  the  prayers  of  the  Church.  Mr.  Duche,  a  minister 
of  Christ  Chureh,  Philadelphia,  preached  a  patriotic 
sermon,  said  the  prayers  of  the  Church,  at  which  it 
is  said  the  noble  \A"ashington  alone  knelt,  and  read 
the  service  for  that  day,  a  solemn  memory  day,  Sep- 
tember Uh,  including  the  thirty-fifth  Psalm,  with  its 
earnest  appeal  so  suited  to  the  time:  '^Plead  Thou 
my  cause,  0  God." 

On  June  23,  17 ?5,  Dr.  Smith  (animated  as  he 
was  by  the  purest  zeal  for  interests  of  both  England 
and  the  colonies)  preached  in  Christ  church,  Philadel- 
phia, before  the  Congress  and  the  militia,  a  thought- 
ful sermon  which  made  a  remarkable  impression  on 
the  ci\'ilized  world,  being  translated  into  several  for- 
eign languages,  and  printed  in  an  edition  of  10,000 
copies  at  the  expense  of  the  Chamljerlain  of  London. 

Shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  clergy,  many  lay- 
men, some  of  the  Church,  took  iiart  in  the  American 


OF  THK  CHrRCH  TX  AMERICA  77 

cause,  like  llie  brave,  energetic  Captain  Blackier.  a 
parishioner  of  St.  Michael's,  ]\Iarb]ehead,  who,  ac- 
companied by  his  strong  Marblehead  sailors,  com- 
manded the  boat  in  which,  on  that  bitter  December 
night  when  the  cause  of  the  suffering-  Americans  Avas 
at  its  lowest  point,  Cleneral  Washington  crossed  the 
icy  Delaware  river  to  fight  the  battle  of  Trenton. 

Through  the  eight  terrible  years  of  war,  the 
prayers  and  sacraments  of  the  Church  endured,  and, 
when  in  1783  the  new  nation  stood  on  the  threshold 
of  its  life,  Washington,  the  father  of  the  young  coun- 
try, knelt  to  thank  God  and  to  seek  new  grace  for 
new  needs  in  the  old  Church  in  wliose  communion  be 
both  lived  and  died. 

After  tlie  separation  from  England,  when, public- 
prayers  for  the  king  might  no  longer  be  said,  tbe 
Americans,  having  no  Prayer  Books  but  tliose  of  the 
Church  of  England,  quietly  pasted  over  the  prayers 
for  the  king  and  royal  family  a  sheet  on  which  were 
l)rinted  prayers  for  the  President  of  the  l^nitcfl 
States.  Many  of  these  remodelled  pages  may  be  seen 
in  the  huge  leather-liound  Praye]'  Books  of  the  colo- 
nial churches  from  St.  John's.  Portsmouth,  and 
Christ  Church,  Boston,  soutliward.  But  as  soon  as 
was  possil)le  the  English  Prayer  Book  was  altered  to 
suit  the  changed  circumstances  of  this  country,  while 
it  was  left  entirely  unchanged  in  all  essential  points 
of  "doctrine,  discipline,  and  worsbip,"  and  in  these  it 


78  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

still  remains  unchanged  to  this  very  year  of  memory 
days  which  connect  our  Church  in  America  with  its 
own  true  Mother  Church  in  England. 

And  now  Christianity  is  a  part  of  the  land.  In 
the  Constitution  we  read :  ''Done  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord";  and  so  the  United  States  dates  the  ratification 
of  its  form  of  government  from  the  coming  of  Christ 
and  declares  Him  to  be  the  Lord  of  the  nation.  Also, 
in  the  Constitution,  the  observance  of  Sunday  is  di- 
rected by  Congress  and  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
land.  By  a  law  of  the  Congress  of  the  year  1800, 
the  goveriunent  maintains  chaplains  for  the  army  and 
the  navy;  commanders  in  the  navy  are  ordered  to 
h."-  divine  worship  conducted  in  a  solemn  manner 
twice  daily,  and  to  have  a  sermon  preached  on  Sun- 
day; all  possible  of  the  ship's  company  are  obliged  to 
attend  public  worship,  and  there  are  laws  providing 
for  the  punishment  of  any  irreverence  at  service. 
Also,  the  cadets  of  the  military  and  naval  academies 
are  obliged  to  attend  divine  service,  and  chaplains 
are  appointed  for  both  Houses  of  Congress.  When 
Michigan  was  a  United  States  territory  it  was  pro- 
vided that  in  it  the  first  day  of  the  week  should  be 
observed  as  a  day  of  rest. 

In  many  of  the  States  of  the  Union,  the  Christian 
Faith  is  still  further  recognized.  ,  In  Massachusetts, 
certain  legal  provisions  were  long  ago  made  for  the 
reason  that  "these  tend  to  the  'honor  of  God  and  the 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  79 

advantage  of  the  Cliristiaii  religion."  In  North  Caro- 
lina, an  old  law  decrees  that  "no  person  who  denies 
the  religious  truths  or  the  divine  authority  of  the  Old 
and  jSTew  Testament  shall  hold  office  in  civil  depart- 
ments of  the  State"';  and  man}^  of  the  States  have 
stringent  laws  in  regard  to  Sundaj'. 

While  our  country  thus  remembers  and  honors  the 
Christian  religion,  and  the  God  who  is  the  Lord  of 
the  Church,  the  Church  constantly  in  prayer  and 
thanksgiving  remembers  our  country.  Daily  the 
Church  prays  for  God's  blessing  on  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  the  Governor  of  the  State 
and  all  others  in  authority;  she  prays  for  the 
country  in  time  of  sickness  and  war  and  tumult,  for 
the  "harvest  and  labors  of  the  husbandman,"  for  pei'- 
sons  going  to  sea,  including — or  perhaps  mainly 
meaning — the  men  of  our  navy,  since  the  prayer  asks 
deliverance  from  the  "violence  of  enemies."  She 
thanks  God  for  deliverance  from  our  enemies,  and 
for  "restoring  ptiblic  peace  at  home";  and  in  the 
daily  service  of  Prayer  at  Sea,  she  prays  not  only  foi- 
the  safety  of  the  ships'  crews  and  the  fleet  in  which 
they  serve,  but  also  that  these  may  be  a  "safeguard 
unto  the  United  States  of  America,  and  that  all  the 
inhabitants  of  our  land  may  in  peace  and  quietness 
serve  God."  She  prays  for  God's  mercy  in  time  of 
storms  at  sea,  and  His  defence  against  the  enemy  be- 
fore a  fight ;  she  praises  Him  for  deliverance  from  the 


80  SOME  MEilORY  DAYS 

tempest  and  after  victories,  declaring  that  "the  Lord 
hath  done  great  things  for  us";  and  she  beseeches 
that  God  M'ill  give  the  nation  "grace  to  improve  this 
great  mercy  to  His  glor}'^,  the  advancement  of  His 
Gospel,  the  honor  of  our  oonntrv.  and  the  good  of  all 
mankind." 

•  Thus  divine  blessings  are  daily  sought  for  the 
country  by  the  prayers  of  the  Church  in  the  United 
States  in  all  her  holy  places  from  ocean  to  ocean,  and 
in  every  ship  that  carries  with  the  starry  banner  of 
the  nation  our  fathers  founded  in  this  land  the 
Prayer  Book  of  the  Church  that  the  same  fathers 
planted  on  these  shores. 


X. 

The  First  Bishops. 

The  Church  was  planted  in  America,  and  devoted 
and  self-sacrificing  missionaries,  clergjnnen  and  lay- 
men, were  working  zealously  and  lovingly  to  spread 
the  faith,  but  there  were  no  chief  shepherds  of  God's 
flock  in  the  new  Church.  As  early  as  1716  a  mis- 
sionary to  America  wrote  to  a  friend  in  England : 
"The  poor  Church  of  God  here  in  the  wilderness  I 
There  is  none  to  guide  her."  In  1718  some  of  the 
American  clergy  sent  a  petition  to  the  S.  P.  G.,  saying 
that,  "for  want  of  the  episcopacy  and  because  there 
has  never  been  any  Bishop  sent  to  visit  us,  our 
churches  remain  unconsecrated,  our  children  are 
grown  up  and  cannot  be  confirmed,  and  for  M'ant  of 
tlie  sacred  power  the  vacancies  in  the  ministry  cannot 
be  supplied."  In  1724  the  Rev.  Samnol  Johnson  of 
Stratford,  Conn.,  urged  the  Bishop  of  London  to  a]> 
point  a  Bishop  for  America,  because  the  young  Tiien 
here  could  have  the  divine  grace  of  ordination  only 
by  crossing  the  seas  "with  all  their  dangers,  and," 
he  continued,  "many  thousands  of  souls  do  patiently 


82  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

long  and  pray  for  Bishops  and  for  want  of  them  do 
extremely  suffer." 

But  this  cry  of  the  American  Church  received  no 
answer  until  the  long  war  of  the  Eevolution  was 
ended;  then,  among  the  first  fruits  of  the  happy 
peace,  the  Church  "sprang  up  with  beauty,"  arising 
to  new  life  with  the  gift  of  the  episcopate.  And  one 
of  our  memory  days  is  the  Feast  of  the  Annunciation, 
1783,  when  ten  clergymen,  feeling  deeply  the  need  of 
Bishops  to  minister  to  the  now  feeble  and  scattered 
Church  in  the  United  States,  met  in  the  quiet  village 
of  Woodbury,  Conn.,  at  the  house  of  the  Eev.  John 
Marshall,  the  rector  of  Woodbury,  and  a  missionary 
of  the  S.  P.  G.,  and  selected  two  men,  the  Rev.  Jere- 
miah Leaming  and  the  Eev.  Samuel  Sea  bury,  as  suit- 
able to  go  to  England,  to  ob'tain,  if  possible,  conse- 
cration. 

Mr.  Leaming,  weary  and  worn  by  long  services  to 
the  Church,  and  weakened  by  age  and  infirmities, 
shrank  from  the  burden,  and  so  it  was  ordered  by 
God  that  Mr.  Seabury,  simple,  grand,  conciliatory, 
and  uncompromising,  a  man  of  boldness,  zeal,  and 
unflinching  adherence  to  truth,  should  be  the  man  to 
seek  the  apostolic  order  in  England.  Provided  with 
letters  from  prominent  clerg}anen  to  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  pleading  America's  need  of  Bishops, 
Mr.  Seabury,  embarking  his  entire  property  in  the 
enterprise,  set  sail  for  England  in  the  flagship  of 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA        83 

Admiral  Digby,  while  behind  him  in  America  the 
Church  prayed  earnestly  that  God  would  keep  him 
under  His  protection  and  conduct  him  in  safety  to 
his  desired  end.  Dr.  Seabury  arrived  in  London  on 
July  7f  1783;  but  he  sought  in  vain  to  obtain  there 
the  precious  gift  of  the  Apostolic  Succession  for  the 
struggling  Church  in  America;  for  certain  political 
reasons,  the  boon  was  denied.  So  the  zealous  and 
kind-hearted  Dr.  George  Berkeley  and  other  friends 
of  the  American  Church  urged  the  Bishops  in  Scot- 
land to  consecrate  Mr.  Seabury,  and  after  long  de- 
liberation these  consented,  one  of  them  writing,  "I  do 
not  see  how  we  can  account  to  our  Lord  and  Master 
if  we  neglect  such  an  opportunity  of  promoting  His 
truth  and  enlarging  the  borders  of  His  Church." 

Because  the  Church  in  Scotland  up  to  that  time 
had  refused  to  disown  the  royal  House  of  Stuart  and 
give  allegiance  to  the  House  of  Hanover,  she  had 
been  forbidden  to  hold  service  except  in  private  dwell- 
ings; hence,  Bishop  Skinner  of  Aberdeen  had  found 
a  retired  spot  in  a  narrow  close  (alley)  and  there 
rented  a  house,  the  upper  floor  of  which  was  a  chapel. 
This  is  a  place  of  precious  memory  to  the  American 
Church,  for  in  that  humble  chapel,  on  the  Twenty- 
second  Sunday  after  Trinity,  November  14,  1784,  by 
Bishop  Kilgour,  the  Primus  of  Scotland,  assisted  by 
Bishops  Petrie  and  Skinner,  Samuel  Seabur}'^,  in  the 
presence  of  a  large  number  of  persons,  both  clergy 


■S4  SO:\IE  ^FEMORY  DAYS 

and  laity,  was  consecrated  to  be  tlie  first  Bishop  of 
the  Church  in  America.  Solomnlv  the  congregation 
prayer  God  "to  keep  His  household  the  Church  in 
continual  godliness;  that  through  His  protection  it 
might  be  free  from  all  adversities,  and  devoutly  given 
to  serve  Him  in  good  works,  to  the  glory  of  His 
name,"  and  fervently  they  sang  the  impressive  words 
of  the  nineteenth  psalm  : 

'•To   all    Tliy   servants.    Lord,    let   this 

Thy  wondrous  work  be  known. 
And  to  onr  ofl'spring  yet  unborn 

Thy  glorious  power  be  shown. 
Let  Thy  bright  rays  upon  us  shine. 

Give  Thou  our  work  success; 
This  glorious  work  we  have  in  hand. 

Do  Thou  vouchsafe  to  bless." 

Deep  and  holy  interest  in  this  consecration  was 
felt,  and  many  blessings  were  invoked  upon  the  now 
Bishop  and  his  work  by  the  members  of  the  Church 
in  Scotland,  that  "small  branch  of  the  true  Vine  to 
which  God's  Providence  had  given  the  power  of  trans- 
planting to  the  vast  vineyard  of  the  West  a  shoot 
which  should  fill  the  land." 

Like  the  Church  in  America,  the  Scottish  Church 
stood  for  earnest  convictions  and  sacrifices,  and  it  re- 
garded the  episcopal  order  not  on  the  temporal  side, 
but  on  the  spiritual.  Its  clergy,  as  one  said,  had 
''ventured  for  a  long  time  to  show  more  regard  to  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles  than  to  the  acts  of  Parliament." 
So  the  Church  in  America  is  closelv  bound  toojether 


BISHOP    SEABUKY. 
[First    American    Bishop.] 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  85 

with  this  free  and  spiritual  Church  in  Scotland,  to 
which  the  Connecticut  clergy  sent  an  address  of 
thanks,  containing  these  words :  "Wherever  the 
American  Episcoj)al  Church  shall  be  mentioned  in 
the  world,  may  this  good  deed  which  they  have  done 
for  us  be  spoken  of  for  a  memorial  of  them.'" 

After  a  wearisome  homeward  voyage  of  three 
months.  Bishop  Seabury  arrived  in  Xewport  on  June 
20,  1785,  and  on  the  next  Sunday  he  preached  in  old 
Trinity  church  the  first  sermon  ever  preached  in  this 
land  by  an  American  Bishop.  His  text  was  Hebrews 
xii.  1 :  "Seeing  we  are  compassed  about  with  so  great 
a  cloud  of  witnesses — let  us  run  with  patience  the 
race  that  is  set  before  us,  looking  unto  Jesus,  tlie  au- 
thor and  finisher  of  our  faith." 

It  was  granted  to  the  Bishop  to  be  greatly  blessed 
in  the  "race  set  before  him,"  and  to  see  the  Church 
in  America  united  and  firmly  settled  on  the  founda- 
tions of  the  apostles. 

In  August,  1785,  the  first  diocesan  convention  of 
Connecticut  met  at  Middletown,  and  acknowledged 
Bishop  Seabury  as  the  ecclesiastical  head ;  and  he  sat 
in  his  chair  before  the  clergy,  M'hile  one  of  these  read 
a  formal  recognition,  thanking  God  "that  He  at  last 
permitted  the  Church  in  America  to  enjoy  the  long- 
desired  blessing  of  a  pure,  valid,  and  free  episcopacy," 
and  declaring,  "in  the  presence  of  Almighty  God,  that 
they  acknowledged  Dr.  Seabury  as  their  Bishop,  su- 


86  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

preme  in  the  government  of  the  Church;  also,  they 
thanked  the  Scotch  Bishops,"  faithful  holders  of  the 
apostolic  commission,  who  gave  freely  that  which 
they  had  freely  received.  The  Bishop  then  celebrated 
Holy  Communion,  ordained  four  deacons,  and  gave 
the  congregation  the  apostolic  blessing. 

A  truly  memorable  day  was  that,  August  3,  1785; 
and  on  the  following  day  the  new  Bishop  gave  his 
first  charge  to  his  clergy,  reminding  them  that  they 
were  to  use  the  precious  gift  that  they  had  received 
for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  His  Church,  and 
urging  them  to  teach  the  nature  and  meaning  of  con- 
firmation and  its  benefits,  for  hitherto  the  members 
of  the  American  Church  had  remained  unconfirmed 
for  want  of  a  Bishop. 

Thus  Bishop  Seabury  began  the  noble  apostolic 
work  in  which  he  continued  many  years,  taking  jour- 
neys, long  and  hard  in  those  days,  by  boat  or  on  horse- 
back, over  rough,  hilly  roads,  going  throughout  New 
England,  ordaining  clergymen  and  administering  con- 
firmation to  great  numbers.  On  one  summer  Sunday 
in  1791  he  confirmed  seventy-two  persons  in  old  St. 
John's  church,  Portsmouth,  and  a  few  days  later  he 
gave  to  thirty-three  more  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
beside  ordaining  the  Eev.  Robert  Towle,  the  first 
priest  to  be  ordained  in  this  part  of  the  country.  A 
few  days  afterward  he  preached  in  Newburyport,  to 
a  congregation  of  two  thousand  pei-sons,  and  con- 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  87 

fij-med  a  hundred  persons.  As  the  Bishop  travelled, 
he  gained  much  influence  among  the  people  by  his 
readiness  to  use  for  their  benefit  his  knowledge  of 
medicine  and  of  new  discoveries  in  science.  A  story 
of  him  which  was  widely  circulated  and  which  added 
much  to  his  popularity  is  that  of  a  certain  hot  sum- 
mer day,  when  he  was  sailing  on  a  packet  to  New 
York,  and  some  of  his  fellow-passengers  were  sighing 
for  a  cool  drink.  The  Bishop  hung  up  a  covered  Jug 
of  the  lukewarm  water  of  the  boat,  and  dashed  fresh 
water  over  and  over  it.  "What  is  the  foolish  man  up 
to?"  whispered  a  youngster.  The  Bishop  continued 
his  work,  and  after  a  time  poured  M'ater  from  the 
jug  and  gave  it  to  his  companions,  who  to  their  sur- 
prise found  it  cool  and  refreshing.  "You  see,"  he 
said  quietly  to  the  lad,  "T  am  no  fool  and  you  are  no 
philosopher." 

BishoiJ  Seabury's  one  great  desire  was  to  promote 
the  cause  of  Christ's  Church  and  of  pure  religion, 
and  for  this  cause  he  was  ready  to  yield  his  own 
opinions  in  non-essentials;  but  he  was  firmly  fixed 
in  all  vital  matters,  and  in  his  generous,  self-sacrific- 
ing life,  he  lived  not  only  as  a  faithful  Christian 
Bishop  but  also  as  a  true  friend  of  the  people. 

Now,  in  these  days,  God  had  given  to  one  of  His 
servants  the  special  gifts  needed  at  this  critical  time 
in  America,  and  the  name  of  Willian)  White,  of 
Philadelphia,  will  always  be  gratefully  remembered 


88  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

by  our  ChurcJi  of  the  West.  Dr.  White  was  a  man 
mild  in  manner,  meek  in  spirit,  tolerant  of  others, 
a  peacemaker,  and  so  kind  and  gentle  that  men  would 
hear  from  him  wliat  they  would  not  from  another, 
an  advantage  which  he  used  for  the  good  of  the 
Church.  He  was  humble,  trusting  in  his  Redeemer 
and  seeking  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  and 
through  a  long  life  he  never  shrank  from  any  known 
duty.  When  the  yellow  fever  appeared  in  Philadel- 
phia, three-quarters  of  the  terror-stricken  inhabitants 
fled  from  the  city,  but  Dr.  White  remained  with  the 
sick  and  dying,  spending  with  them  his  days  and 
nights,  for,  "where,"  said  he,  "should  a  pastor  be 
but  with  his  suffering  flock?'"  And  long  afterward, 
when  he  was  an  old  man  of  eighty-five,  and  Phila- 
delphia was  smitten  with  Asiatic  cholera,  the  aged 
shepherd  of  his  people  was  seen  daily  in  the  hos- 
pitals, praying  at  the  bedside  of  the  dying.  With 
gentle  manners,  love  for  his  fellows,  and  respect  for 
their  opinions,  he  lived  without  an  enemy. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  Dr.  White, 
from  the  conviction  of  his  conscience,  took  the  Amer- 
ican side  and  became  chaplain  of  Congress,  and  the 
end  of  the  war  found  him  the  rector  of  St.  Peter's 
Church  in  Philadelphia,  and  of  Christ  Church,  where 
General  Washington  Avorshipped. 

This  good  man  used  his  influence  in  gathering 
together,  in  1785  and  1786,  an  assembly  of  the 
Church   composed   of   delegates   from   seven   of   the 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  AMERICA  89 

tliirteen  states,  who  urged  that  every  effort  shoukl 
be  made  to  obtain  more  Bishof)s,  securing  the  apos- 
tolic order,  if  possible,  from  the  English  Church. 
It  was  decided  that  Dr.  White,  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  Dr.  Provoost,  of  New  York,  a  man  strong  in 
the  Faith  and  fearless,  should  be  recommended  to 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  for  consecratioUj  and 
these  chosen  men  sailed  in  1786  for  England,  arriv- 
ing in  London  on  November  29th. 

The  petition  of  the  iVmerican  Church  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  had  been  presented  in 
person  by  the  American  Minister  to  England,  Mr. 
John  x\dams,  who,  though  not  himself  a  Churchman, 
bravely  and  generously  gave  great  aid  to  the  Church, 
and  who  is  therefore  to  be  held  in  grateful  memory 
by  us  all.  Mr.  Adams  presented  Dr.  White  and  Dr. 
Provoost  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who  re- 
ceived them  cordially,  as  also  did  the  king. 

Matters  in  England  had  changed  somewhat  since 
Dr.  Seabury  was  consecrated  in  Scotland,  and  it  is 
also  believed  that  the  English  Cliurch  was  deeply 
influenced  by  the  action  of  the  Scottish  Church  in 
giving  freely  to  America  the  gift  of  the  Apostolic 
Succession,  and  the  English  Bisliops  now  agreed  to 
grant  the  request  of  tlie  American  Church.  So,  on 
a  glad  memory  Sunday,  February  4,  1787,  in  the 
chapel  of  Lambetli  I'alace,  by  the  Archbishops  of 
Canterbury  and  York  and  the  Bishops  of  Bath  and 
Wells  and    Peter))orouffh,   the   two  Americans   were 


90  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

consecrated,  and  the  Mother  Church  of  England  gave 
to  her  daugliter  Church  the  great  and  greatly  needed 
gift  of  the  Apostolic  Succession.  It  is  interesting 
to  remember  that  in  the  congregation  at  Lambeth 
Chapel  on  that  February  Sunday  was  the  Eev.  Mr. 
Duche,  who  had  years  before  said  the  first  prayer  in 
the  first  American  Congress,  and  who,  though  long 
ago  returned  to  live  in  England,  had  always  loved 
and  worked  for  the  American  Church. 

Then,  rejoicing,  the  two  newly  consecrated  Bish- 
ops went  back  to  their  own  land,  carrying  the  office 
of  the  first  apostles.  Solemnly  glad  was  their  land- 
ing on  Easter  Day,  April  7,  1787,  coming  as  they 
did  as  special  witnesses  of  the  Eesurrection,  the  joy- 
ful memory  of  which  the  Church  throughout  all  the 
world  was  that  day  keeping. 

It  was  an  important  day  for  the  Church  in 
America  when,  on  July  28,  1789,  its  representatives 
met  in  General  Convention  in  Philadelphia,  for  the 
first  time  gathering  as  when  of  old  the  "apostles  and 
elders  came  together  at  Jerusalem,"  for  now  as  then 
the  Church  met  with  Bishops,  presbyters,  deacons, 
and  the  laity,  "the  multitude  of  the  faithful."  In 
this  convention  and  in  its  adjourned  session,  together 
with  much  other  important  work,  our  Prayer  Book 
was  established  practically  as  we  now  have  it,  ful- 
filling its  profession  that  the  "Church  in  America  is 
far  from  intending  to  depart  from  the  Cbui'ch  of 


r.lSIMM-    WIII'II':    OK    I'KNNSYLVANIA. 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  91 

England  in  any  essential  j^oint  of  doctrine,  disci- 
pline, or  worship." 

In  1790  Dr.  Madison  was  elected  Bishop  of  Vir- 
ginia and  was  consecrated  in  England;  thus  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty-four  j-ears  after  her  first  planting, 
Virginia  had  her  own  Bishop. 

On  the  memory  day,  September  17,  1792,  took 
place  the  first  American  consecration  of  a  Bishop  for 
Maryland,  Dr.  Claggett,  upon  whom  were  laid  the 
apostolic  hands  of  all  the  American  Bishops,  Bishops 
Seabury,  White,  Provoost,  and  Madison.  So  at  last 
the  Church  in  America  was  complete  in  all  her  func- 
tions and  powers,  and  able  to  expand  as  God  might 
give  grace  and  opportunity,  to  meet  the  ever-increas- 
ing needs  of  the  young  but  rapidly  growing  Republic 
of  the  West. 


XL 

The  Advance. 

At  the  close  of  tlie  eighteenth  centiir}',  the 
Church  in  the  young  Eepuhlic  at  last  was  firmly 
established  under  the  care  of  its  own  chief  shep- 
herds, the  Bishops  who  had  received  their  commis- 
sion in  the  line  of  the  apostles;  and  the  tree  from 
the  seed  planted  at  Jamestown  was  growing  in  the 
thirteen  states,  at  the  mouth  of  the  great  rivers 
along  the  Atlantic  shore.  But  the  country  was  al- 
ready beginning  to  widen  its  boundaries.  There  was 
activity  on  the  frontier  where  the  roads  ended  and 
the  axe  had  but  begun  its  work,  leaving  huge  stumps 
standing  in  their  native  soil  around  the  rude  log  huts 
of  the  settlers,  on  the  border  of  tlie  great  wilder- 
ness with  its  unending  shadows,  wild  animals,  and 
wild  Indians.  Constantly  the  black  line  of  the  for- 
est Avas  moving  away  from  the  ocean  shore  toward 
the  sunset.  In  this  border-land,  where  the  bold  fron- 
tiermen  were  building  up  their  homes  and  their 
nation,  the  claims  and  comforts  of  religion  were 
often  forgotten;  in  the  lonely  settlements  no  church- 
spire  pointed  toward  heaven,  and  no  calling  bells 
reminded  men  of  prayer  and  praise;  the  children  of 


BISlIOl'   IIOBAUT. 
[New   York.] 


OF  THE  CIUTvCH  IX  AMERICx\  OH 

these  homes  grew  up  uubaptized  and  with  no  knowl- 
edge of  God  or  faith  in  Christ. 

Over  this  matter  the  hearts  of  faithful  men  were 
stirred,  and  especially  good  Bishop  Hobart,  of  New 
York,  filled  with  love  for  souls,  felt  the  pressing  need 
of  the  people  on  the  frontier,  and  urged  the  Church 
to  send  laborers  to  plant  in  these  new  lands  the 
knowledge  of  Christ  and  the  sacraments  of  His  grace. 
Men  heard  and  obej-ed  this  call ;  but  often  it  Avas  the 
humble,  faithful  lay- worker  who  first  went  to  the 
frontier  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  Church.  Among 
these  devoted  men  was  one  who  bore  the  honored 
memory  name,  Samuel  Gunn.  He  was  a  Connecti- 
cut man,  baptized  by  a  missionary  of  the  S.  P.  G., 
and  one  of  the  first  to  receive  from  Bishop  Seabury 
the  blessing  of  Confirmation.  As  the  town  in  which 
Mr.  Gunn  lived  had  no  clergyman,  the  Bishop,  notic- 
ing his  holy  life,  appointed  him  lay-reader  to  a  small 
band  of  earnest  Christians  who  worshipped  God  ac- 
cording to  the  service  of  the  old  Church.  Now  and 
then  a  priest  visited  the  people  to  administer  the 
sacraments;  but  for  years  they  depended  principally 
upon  Samuel  Gunn  for  their  religious  teaching  and 
inspiration.  After  a  time  Mr.  Gunn  with  his  family 
moved  away  to  the  then  distant  land  of  Western  New 
York,  and  in  his  new  home  he  gathered  together  so 
many  worshippers  that  tliey  soon  formed  a  parish 
and  called  a  minister. 

In   1805   Mr.   Gunn  removed   still   farther  west. 


94  SOME  MEMOPxY  DAYS 

111  this  joiiniev  through  the  great  wihlerness,  oiie  of 
his  children  was  suddenly  taken  from  him,  and  the 
little  body  was  laid  away  to  sleep  in  the  silence  of 
the  deep  forest  until  the  Resurrection  morning. 
With  his  family  and  his  goods,  ]\Ir.  Gunn  floated 
down  the  Ohio  Eiver,  then  a  wild  and  little  known 
river,  until  he  came  to  a  place  settled  by  a  dozen 
families.  Then  l^egan  the  prayers  and  praise  of  the 
Church  on  tlie  banks  of  the  Ohio,  where  a  little  band 
of  worshippers  gathered  with  Mr.  Gunn. 

The  good  man  was  filled  with  joy  when,  in  1819, 
he  heard  that  Ohio  had  been  made  a  diocese  and 
that  its  new  Bishop  Avas  the  very  missionary  who 
had  often  been  in  his  home  in  Xew  York.  He  wrote 
to  Bishop  Chase  of  his  needy  little  flock  at  Ports- 
mouth, to  which  a  clergyman  was  sent,  while  soon 
the  Bishop  himself  came  to  the  company,  upon  whom 
his  simple  piety  made  a  deep  impression.  The  Bishop 
organized  a  parish  here,  making  Mr.  Gunn  the  senior 
warden,  and  leaving  him  still  the  lay-reader,  in 
which  office  he  was  now  greatly  assisted  by  the  dis- 
covery of  a  number  of  Prayer  Books  that  had  long 
been  lying  unregarded  on  a  dusty  shelf  of  the  village 
store,  Init  now  were  in  such  demand  that  the  people, 
who  had  little  money,  paid  twenty  l)ushels  of  corn  for 
a  single  copy.  In  1831  a  room  was  fitted  up  for  tlie 
worship  of  God,  and  the  aged  lay-reader  handed  over 
his  work  to  a  clergyman.  He  urged  his  neigh- 
bors to  build  a  church,  toward  which  he  gave  one- 


p.isiior  I'liir-AXDKit  CHASE, 

[I'ioncer  Missiduary   in  Ohio  and   Illinois.] 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  A.MERICA  95 

third  of  his  ^hole  little  property;  but  before 
this  sacred  church  was  l)uilt,  the  faithful  pioneer- 
missionary  was  received  by  the  Master  whom  he  had 
long  served  into  the  peace  of  the  Church  at  Eest. 

Dr.  Chase,  the  first  Bishop  of  Ohio,  was  himself 
the  son  of  parents  who  were  pioneers  when  the  fron- 
tier was  farther  east  and  had  the  Connecticut  for 
its  boundary.  He  had  intended  to  spend  his  life  on 
the  farm  of  his  parents,  but  God  planned  for  him 
another  career  to  which  he  was  called,  at  first,  by  the 
path  of  pain  from  a  maimed  and  broken  limb,  which 
shut  him  out  from  the  active  life  and  led  to  his  go- 
ing to  college.  There  he  first  saw  the  Prayer  Book, 
which  won  him  by  its  showing  of  the  sure  claims  of 
the  Apostolic  Commission  and  by  its  spiritual  tone, 
and  he  went  back  to  the  farm  on  the  Connecticut 
Eiver  to  lead  his  old  father  into  the  Church.  ^Yith 
their  own  hands  the  old  man  and  the  young  man 
built  a  little  house  of  worship,  to  which  they  wel- 
comed their  neighbors  on  the  occasional  visits  of  a 
priest  from  a  distance,  and  in  which  Philander  Chase, 
as  layman,  read  prayers  and  sermons.  The  youth's 
heart  was  set  upon  the  ministry,  but  how  could  he 
o1)tain  education  and  ordination?  There  were  no 
theological  seminaries  in  tlie  land,  and  there  was  no 
Bishop  near  to  direct  him.  With  hesitation,  Chase 
set  out  for  Albany  to  seek  there  the  guidance  of  the 
Rev.  'My.  Ellison,  who  received  the  country  boy  with 


9(5  SOAIE  MEMORY  DAYS 

a  hearty  "God  bless  yoti,"  and  settled  him  in  his 
vocation. 

In  1798  Mr.  Chase  was  ordained  deacon  by 
Bishop  Provoost,  of  New  York,  and  sent  as  home 
missionary  to  the  forest  district  in  the  western  part 
of  that  state.  Here,  among  the  immigrants  on  the 
outskirts,  he  labored  with  his  whole  heart,  thinking 
nothing  of  the  privations  of  the  rough  life,  ready  to 
live  in  a  cabin  of  unhewn  logs,  with  scarce  a  pane 
of  glass  to  let  in  light  enough  to  read  his  Bible,  but 
he  soon  had  the  joy  of  seeing  large  congregations 
gather  for  worship. 

At  the  advice  of  his  Bishop,  he  went  for  a  time 
to  New  Orleans,  where  he  formed  the  first  parish  of 
the  English  Church  in  that  city;  then,  after  serving 
the  Church  in  Hartford,  where  he  was  much  loved, 
his  thoughts  turned  again  to  the  lonely  clearings  and 
the  rude  villages  of  the  new  West,  and  he  set  out 
for  missionary  work  in  Ohio,  where  settlements  were 
beginning  to  straggle  through  the  wilderness.  Other 
clergymen  went  to  his  aid;  the  diocese  of  Ohio  was 
organized ;  he  was  chosen  Bishop,  and  on  a  memory 
day  of  the  American  Church,  in  February,  1819,  he 
was  consecrated  in  Philadelphia  by  good  old  Bishop 
White  and  three  other  American  Bishops,  and  be- 
came the  first  Bishop  of  the  great  advance  of  the 
American  Church. 

Bishop  Chase,  though  now  a  leader,  was  still  the 
self-sacrificing  missionarv,  and  from  his  rude  log- 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AilERICA  07 

rahin  honie^  the  first  "Episcopal  palace"  ol'  Ohio, 
he  travelled  huudreds  of  miles  yearly,  through  burn- 
ing suns  and  drenching  rains,  visiting  his  scattered 
flock.  ]\Ieantinie,  he  lived  in  great  poverty,  cutting 
and  Iiauling  his  own  wood  and  thrashing  his  grain. 
The  ignorance  and  wickedness  of  the  settlements 
pressed  heavily  on  him,  and  by  great  efforts  he  col- 
lected from  friends  of  the  work  money  to  buy  land, 
on  which  he  built  Kenyon  College  and  the  village 
of  Gambler.  Rising  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
he  directed  the  work  himself,  and  soon  had  students 
gathered  in  his  college. 

The  young  men  were  trained  for  the  especial  work 
of  missionaries  for  the  West.  They  rose  very  early, 
and,  provided  M'ith  books  and  simple  food,  they  went 
out  silently  through  the  ancient  forest  of  tall  trees, 
oak,  hickory,  maple,  sycamore,  walnut,  chestnut,  with 
the  wild  vine  gracefully  festooned  over  their  branches. 
They  passed  clearings  where  cattle  fed  upon  the  rich 
grass  about  a  log-cabin;  passed  the  rude  mill  upon  a 
stream,  stopping  to  talk  with  the  miller  and  interest 
him  in  the  Church  and  accept  his  loan  of  a  horse 
to  help  them  on,  and  in  another  hour  came  to  a  log- 
cabin  village  with  a  schoolhouse,  around  which  was 
built  a  rustic  arbor  of  green  branches.  Here  the 
village  children  were  gathered,  with  now  and  then 
their  parents.  The  student  missionaries  gave  out  a 
hymn  and  knelt  to  pray,  repeating  the  service  from 
memory,  with  a  regard  for  the  untrained  people  who 


98  SOME  MEMOPxY  DAYS 

would  turn  away  if  they  saw  a  Prayer  Book;  and 
then,  after  instructing  the  children,  the  teachers 
would  begin  their  journey  home,  unless,  as  some- 
times happened,  a  poor  man  would  beg  them  to  tell 
him  more  about  the  Church,  and  would  take  them 
to  his  cabin  and  give  them  a  good  dinner  of  chicken, 
hot  bread,  apple-pie,  and  milk. 

On  their  homeward  way,  they  would  find  waiting, 
under  a  great  tree  by  a  stream,  another  congrega- 
tion, and  there  in  the  forest  would  be  said  the  same 
prayers  of  the  Church  which  were  being  said  in  the 
grand  minsters  of  England.  One  place  of  worship 
was  an  orchard  with  its  apple  and  peach  blossoms 
filling  the  air  with  perfume,  and  with  the  Com- 
munion Table  in  its  snowy  linen  standing  on  the 
green  grass  beneath  the  trees.  After  their  long  day 
of  missionary  work,  the  weary  students  walked  home 
through  the  dark  shadows  of  the  woods  in  which  the 
little  lamps  of  the  fireflies  glistened.  In  this  way 
the  Gospel  reached  the  lonely  homes  of  the  pioneers, 
and  by  and  by  straggling  parishes  and  a  great,  though 
poor,  diocese  were  formed. 

Meantime,  work  was  begun  among  the  Indians. 
In  1815  the  attention  of  Bishop  Hobart  was  called 
to  the  Oneidas,  of  whom  four  thousand  were  settled 
on  a  reservation  in  ISTew  York.  The  Bishop,  trying 
to  find  a  man  to  go  to  them  in  a  spirit  of  Christian 
love,  was  guided  to  one  of  their  own  blood,  Eleazar 
Williams,  who  had  received  a  Christian  education  and 


OF  THE  CHUECH  IX  AMERICA  99 

could  speak  to  his  people  in  their  own  tongue.  Years 
before,  in  an  attack  of  the  Indians  on  the  Massa- 
chusetts village,  Deerfield,  they  had  carried  away  the 
wife  and  children  of  the  minister.  One  of  the  daugh- 
ters married  an  Indian,  and  it  was  her  son  who  was 
now  to  carry  the  good  news  of  God  to  his  own 
brethren  of  the  forest,  going  first  as  a  teacher  and 
carrying  the  Gospels  and  Psalms  translated  into  the 
Oneida  tongue. 

God  gave  great  blessings  to  his  labors,  as  we  may 
see  from  some  letters  sent  to  the  Bishop  by  a  Chris- 
tian Indian.  "Eight  Reverend  Father,"  he  wrote, 
"we  rejoice  and  give  thanks  for  the  favor  you  have 
l)estowed  on  our  nation  in  sending  Brother  Williams 
to  instruct  us  in  the  religion  of  the  blessed  Jesus. 
He  shall  remain  in  our  hearts  so  long  as  he  shall 
teach  us  the  ways  of  the  Great  Spirit  above.  A  great 
light  has  risen  on  us;  we  see  that  the  Christian  re- 
ligion is  intended  for  the  good  of  the  Indians  as 
well  as  the  white  people,  and  we  feel  that  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Gospel  will  make  us  happy  in  this  world 
and  in  the  world  to  come.  We  have  assisted  our 
Brother  all  that  was  in  our  power;  you  know  he  has 
lived  very  poor,  and  we  wish  to  do  something  for 
him,  but  we  cannot  now,  for  we  have  just  raised  be- 
tween three  and  four  thousand  dollars  for  a  little 
chapel.  We  intreat  you  as  the  head  of  the  holy 
apostolic  Church  in  this  state  to  take  special  charge 


100  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

of  us;  we  are  iguoraiii,  mean,  and  poor,  and  need 
your  assistance.'' 

In  1818  Bisliop  Hobart  made  liis  lirst  visit  to 
his  Indian  children  in  their  iiome  of  open  pastures 
and  deep  forests,  wliere  there  were  no  roads  except 
narrow  paths,  and  where  the  rude  but  sometimes 
neat  houses  Avere  scattered  about  in  the  full  sunshine 
or  in  the  shades  of  the  woods.  With  those  who 
flocked  about  their  Bishop  came  one  old  Mohawk 
warrior,  who,  among  heathen  companions  for  fifty 
years,  had  been  true  to  the  Christian  faith  in  which 
he  had  been  baptized  by  an  English  missionary,  when 
the  United  States  were  still  colonies  of  England. 
Mr.  Williams,  being  acquainted  with  the  language, 
customs,  and  disposition  of  the  Oneidas,  had  been 
able  to  interest  them  in  the  Prayer  Book  in  their 
own  language,  and  by  it  to  teach  them  the  ritual 
of  the  Church :  and  the  Bishop  found  that  they  made 
the  responses  with  understanding  and  chanted  the 
h}Tnns  with  fervor.  At  the  confirmation,  the  eighty- 
nine  prepared  by  Mr.  AVilliams  received  the  apostolic 
laying-on  of  hands  wnth  grateful  humility  and  sliared 
in  the  Holy  Communion  with  loving  devotion. 

In  the  South  as  well  as  in  the  ISTorth,  faithful  lay- 
men and  clergymen  were  carrying  the  seed  of  the 
Church  farther  and  farther  Avest.  In  Kentucky  the 
prayers  of  tlie  Church  were  heard  long  before  the 
state  had  parishes  or  a  diocese.  Near  the  state  line 
there  stood   for  many  years,   upon  a   plain   of   fine 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  101 

white  clover,  a  uoble  elm  with  large  branches  ex- 
tending regularly  in  all  directions  from  its  massive 
trunk,  making  a  green  circular  roof  above  the  greens- 
ward below,  where  on  Sundays  some  two  hundred 
persons  used  to  gather  to  worship  God  in  this  church 
of  living  emerald,  wrought  by  His  hand  and  called 
the  Divine  tree.  In  1830  Kentucky  welcomed 
Bishop  Smith,  its  first  Bishop,  and  afterward  Pre- 
siding Bishop  of  the  American  Church. 

The  pioneer  priest  of  Tennessee  was  James  Otey, 
who  was  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Church  by 
reading  the  Prayer  Book.  Going  first  to  the  state 
as  a  teacher,  he  was  moved  by  the  spiritual  need  of 
tlie  people  to  combine  his  ministry  Avith  his  school- 
work.  x4fter  a  week  of  hard  labor,  teaching  the  whole 
round  of  primary  and  academic  studies,  and  prepar- 
ing his  sermons  by  the  light  of  a  tallow  dip  late  at 
night,  he  served  two  parishes  on  Sunday,  travelling 
between  these,  eighteen  miles,  on  horseback.  In  ISSi 
this  pioneer  priest  became  the  first  Bishop  of  the  state, 
and  such  were  his  zeal  and  success  that  he  was  soon 
appointed  Provisional  Bisliop  of  ]\Iississippi  and 
Florida,  and  Missionary  Bishop  of  Arkansas,  Louisi- 
ana, and  the  Indian  Territory.  Years  of  continuous 
toil,  exposed  to  the  hardsliips  and  dangers  of  long 
borseback  journeys  in  an  unsettled  country,  broke  tlie 
brave  Bishop's  health,  but  in  the  delirium  of  sick- 
ness his  mind  was  fixed  on  liis  Iiigli  and  holy  work, 
;ind  be  would  pray,  "Let  me  go  to  the  people,  tliey 


102  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

are  iDerishing  for  the  Bread  of  Life."  The  Church 
of  the  great  Soiitliwest  stands  to-day  as  the  memorial 
of  this  mail's  devoted  labor  and  the  answer  to  his 
prayers. 

Into  the  territory  of  Minnesota,  witli  almost  tlie 
first  immigrants  from  the  East,  had  gone  that  apos- 
tolic man,  who,  after  founding  Nashotah  in  Wis- 
consin, sought  new  work  in  a  fresh  field  and  laid 
the  foundation  of  the  Church,  the  schools,  the  mis- 
sion work  among  the  Indians,  and  the  diocese,  which 
are  now  a  witness  to  the  faith  and  love  of  James  L. 
Breck.  The  Chaplain  at  Fort  Snelling,  the  loved 
Father  Gear,  had  already  given  the  first  English  ser- 
vice in  Minnesota,  but  the  real  work  of  the  Church 
was  not  begun  until  the  year  1850,  when,  on  tlie 
memory  day  which  was  the  Feast  of  St.  John  the 
Baptist,  Mr.  Breck  with  three  loyal  associates  organ- 
ized tlie  mission  for  Minnesota,  kneeling  together  in 
the  celel^ration  of  the  Holy  Communion  beneath  a 
spreading  elm,  and  there  offering  to  God  their  ''body, 
spirit,  and  soul.'"  There  followed  long  journeys  on 
foot  and  services  in  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  on  a 
lilufP  overlooking  the  Mississippi,  in  the  forest,  on  the 
prairies,  in  the  rude  huts  of  the  settlers,  or  in  school- 
houses. 

In  these  years  the  people  of  the  Church  in  the 
East  began  to  look  with  anxious  thought  at  the  many 
people  settling  rapidly  in  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Mis- 
souri, and  the  otlier  states  of  the  ]\Iiddle  ^Yest,  and  to 


i;i;\'.   .iA.\ii:s   l.l,(l^ll   r.inicK. 

[PioncLT   FouudiT    in    W'iscuiisin    ;iii<l    .Mininsot.i.  J 


r.isiior   ki;mi'i:i;. 

[First  Missionary   I'.islmi)  in    Hh'  Crciit    Xortliwist.  | 


OF  THE  CHL-RCII  IX  AMERICA  103 

see  that  it  depended  ujoon  them  and  their  children 
to  save  America  for  Christ,  and  to  send  out  shepherds 
to  seek  the  wandering  flocks;  and  the  Cliurch  began 
to  push  westward  with  tlie  company  of  innnigrants 
and  the  advancing  frontier  line.  Accordingly,  on 
September  25,  1835,  the  Rev.  Jackson  Kemper  was 
consecrated  Bishop  for  the  West  and  sent  out  to  find 
and  lead  the  ignorant  who  did  not  know  the  name 
of  the  Lord.  The  aged  Bishop  White,  the  apostle 
of  love,  had  the  joy  of  laying  his  hands  in  consecra- 
tion upon  this  Missionary  Bishop,  forty-eight  years 
after  he  had  received  in  Lambeth  Chapel  the  apostolic 
gift  from  the  English  primate.  Bishop  Kemper,  wise 
and  courteous,  unwearied  in  effort  and  unsparing  of 
his  strength,  went  to  his  great  field  as  a  witness  for 
Christ  and  the  Church,  following  the  scattered  set- 
tlers into  the  wilderness,  and  carrying  the  message 
of  the  Gospel  to  the  red  Indians. 

Thus,  as  the  army  of  pioneers  marched  on  and 
on  to  the  sunset,  with  them  Avent  loyal  sons  of  the 
Chnrcli,  planting  the  seed  of  the  old  Faith  by  the 
rolling  rivers  and  great  lakes  of  the  continent,  upon 
the  alnjost  boundless  wheat  and  corn  fields  of  Kansas 
and  Dakota,  beyond  the  snow-crowned  mountains  of 
Colorado,  in  the  wild  mining  cami)s  of  Idaho  and 
Montana  and  the  other  states  and  t('rril()ri(?s.  \\'licn 
Die  discovery  of  gold  drew  restless  adventurers  from 
many  lands  to  California,  wlicro  law  was  scarcely 
heeded  and  evervtliinu'  was  swallowed  np  in  the  liastc 


104  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

to  become  rich,  into  the  mad  excitement  was  sent  the 
first  Bishop  of  that  diocese  to  carry  the  peace  of 
God.  On  a  Sunday  in  July,  1849,  Divine  service 
was  celebrated  in  the  home  of  John  Merrill  in  San 
Francisco,  and  the  parish  of  Holy  Trinity  was  organ- 
ized, and  in  the  same  year  a  church  was  built. 

Dr.  Kip,  of  Albany,  was  consecrated  Bishop  of 
California  in  Trinity  Church,  New  York,  on  the 
Feast  of  SS.  Simon  and  Jude,  1853.  After  a  stormy 
morning,  during  the  Communion  service  the  clouds 
broke,  and  a  gleam  of  sunshine  fell  upon  the  altar; 
one  present  said  that  so  the  Church  in  California, 
with  a  beginning  of  gloom,  had  the  promise  that  the 
Sun  of  Eighteousness  would  shine  upon  the  land 
and  bring  forth  fruit  from  it. 

In  1851  the  Rev.  William  Eichmond  was  appoint- 
ed missionary  to  Oregon;  and  at  his  farewell  ser- 
vice, in  St.  Bartholomew's  Church  in  New  York,  was 
read  an  ode  by  Martin  Tupper,  beginning  with  these 
words : 

"Push  on  to  earth's  extremest  verge, 
And  plant  the  Gospel  there; 
Till  wild  Pacific's  angry  surge 

Is  soothed  by  Christian  prayer. 
Advance  the  standard,  conquering  van, 

And  urge  the  triumph  on. 
In  zeal  for  God  and  love  for  man. 
To  distant  Oregon." 

Mr.  Richmond,  with  the  devoted  missionaries,  St. 
Michael  Fackler  and  John  McCarty,  a  former  army 
chaplain,  did  valiant  and  self-sacrificing  work  in  their 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IX  AMERICA  105 

field,  travelling  widely  through  the  forests  aud  over 
the  wide  plains  of  Oregon,  Idalio,  and  Washington. 

In  18GG,  Bishop  Tnttle  was  sent  to  the  newly- 
formed  missionary  district  of  Montana,  Idaho,  and 
Utah,  and  we  are  told  that  "^'in  the  mining  country 
of  Montana,  the  simple  explanations  and  loving  iu- 
\itation  of  the  missionary  won  people  of  all  Christian 
names  to  join  gladly  in  tiiat  prayer  whicli  is  com- 
mon to  minister  and  congregation :  aud  the  dignity 
of  the  holy  worship  of  the  Church,  the  strength  of 
her  historic  position,  and  the  power  of  her  Divine  na- 
ture rendered  her  fit  to  do  lasting  work  for  the 
Master." 

Hero-stories  might  he  told  of  many  brave,  devoted 
pioneers  who  patiently  and  persistently  sowed  tiie 
seed  of  the  Church  through  the  western  land  until, 
in  about  sixty  years  from  the  days  when  Samuel 
Gunn  and  the  other  first  missionaries  turned  their 
faces  toward  the  sunset,  the  banner  of  the  Laml)  had 
been  cai'ried  across  the  continent,  and  the  same 
Church,  once  planted  at  Jamestown  and  on  the  At- 
lantic shores,  was  also  planted  where  the  green,  foam- 
crested  waves  of  the  Pacifit-  roll  up  on  the  western 
coast  of  the  great  Eepublic. 


XII. 

The  Missionary  Church. 

We  have  seen  how,  from  the  very  first,  among 
our  English  forefathers  in  this  land,  there  were  those 
who  came  here  with  all  their  hearts  desiring  to  widen 
the  borders  of  Christ's  Church  and  to  carry  His  Gos- 
pel to  those  who  knew  Him  not;  and  we  have  seen 
how  the  American  Church,  as  soon  as  she  received  the 
apostolic  gift  and  had  her  own  chief  shepherds,  the 
Bishops,  began  in  her  turn  to  go  out  into  the  wilder- 
ness after  the  wandering  sheep  of  the  Good  Shep- 
herd, and  to  do  for  the  new  settlements  in  the  ever- 
widening  borders  something  of  what  had  been  done 
for  her  by  her  benefactor,  the  venerable  Society  for 
the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel.  Soon,  also,  came  the 
desire  to  the  Church  to  spread  the  good  news  in  the 
world  outside  the  country,  as  indeed  was  necessary, 
for  the  soul  of  Christianity  is  missionary,  progressive, 
and  world-embracing;  and  at  a  meeting  held  in  St. 
James'  Church,  in  Philadelphia,  presided  over  by 
Bishop  White,  on  a  memory  da}^  November  21,  1831, 
the  Domestic  and  Foreign  Missionary  Society  of  the 
Chnrcli  was  organized.     The  people  of  the  (Mmrcli 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  IDT 

everywhere  were  deeply  interested,  aud  auxiliary  so- 
cieties sprang  up  all  over  the  land. 

In  1822,  Ephraim  Bacon  and  his  M'ife  were  ap- 
pointed catechists  to  Africa,  but  they  could  not  find 
a  passage  to  that  country,  so  that  they  were  foreign 
missionaries  in  will  only.  A  little  later,  the  Eev. 
Norman  Xash  was  appointed  missionary  to  the  In- 
dians at  Green  Bay,  Wis. ;  and  on  October  1,  1830, 
the  first  foreign  missionaries  sent  out  by  the  Ameri- 
can Church  set  sail  for  Greece.  These  were  the  Eev. 
Dr.  Eobertson  and  his  wife,  the  Eev.  Mr.  Hill  and 
his  wife,  and  Solomon  Bingham,  a  printer.  Next, 
the  needs  of  China  were  recognized,  and  the  death  of 
Augustus  Lyde,  the  first  young  man  who  eagerly  of- 
fered himself  for  this  field,  did  perhaps  more  for 
the  cause  he  loved  than  his  life  would  have  done. 
His  early  death  roused  great  sympathy  throughout 
the  Church,  aud  great  interest  in  the  land  to  which 
he  had  dedicated  himself,  and  in  183-1  the  Eev.  Henry 
Lockwood  was  appointed  missionary  to  China. 

In  organizing  the  missionary  work  of  the  Church, 
Bishop  Doane  of  New  Jersey  did  noble  service;  and 
lie  and  his  associates  first  declared  that  principle 
which  is  now^  one  of  the  missionary  watchwords  of  the 
Church  in  America.  One  day,  in  1835,  when  Bishops 
Doane  and  Mcllvaine  and  Dr.  Milnor,  a  committee 
of  the  directors  of  the  ]\Iissionary  Society,  came  to- 
gether, Bishop  Doane  and  Dr.  Milnor  almost  at  once 
proposed  reporting  that  ihe  Church  is  the  Missionary 


108  SOME  MEilORY  DAYS 

Societij;  \vliereapon  Bishop  Mcllvaiue  exclaimed  that 
this  was  the  very  plan  he  Avas  going  to  speak  of  in 
his  sermon  that  da}'.  Thus  it  was  that  in  the  Gen- 
eral Convention  of  1835,  the  great  Army  of  the  Bap- 
tized was  incorporated  into  the  Missionary  Army  of 
the  Church,  since,  as  Bishop  Doane  showed,  this  was 
a  part  of  the  original  constitution  of  the  Church  by 
the  plan  of  her  Divine  Head,  and  the  duty  of  preach- 
ing the  Gospel  to  every  creature  was  placed  on  every 
Christian  in  his  baptismal  vow.  The  Board  of  Mis- 
sions became  the  agent  of  the  Church;  and  the  Do- 
mestic and  Foreign  Missionary  Committees  were  the 
two  hands  reaching  out  into  the  world  to  carry  the 
Gospel.  Then  and  there  the  Church  in  America 
placed  herself  before  the  world  as  a  Missionary 
Church,  with  her  Bishops  as  apostles,  her  clergy  as 
evangelists,  and  her  baptized  members  as  enlisted 
helpers,  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  hasten  the  coining 
of  the  Kingdom  of  the  King  of  all  nations. 

We  should  consider  briefly  the  present  work  of 
this  Missionary  Church  in  this  year  of  memory  days, 
as  we  look  back  to  Jamestown  and  the  tiny  band  of 
worshippers  on  the  margin  of  the  unknown  continent, 
where  in  no  other  place  were  heard  the  words  of  the 
English  Prayer  Book,  and  then  at  the  home  Church 
of  to-day  in  her  strength  and  beauty,  'with  great  num- 
bers of  splendid  as  well  as  simple  houses  of  worship, 
schools,  colleges,  divinity-schools,  hospitals,  and  char- 
ital)le  homes  of  many  kinds  for  the  relief  of  the  poor 


(;i:(»K<ii:  \VASiiJ.\(;'r«).\  doanli 
[New  Jersey.] 


UF  THE  CHURCH  IX  .UlERICA  10'.) 

and  ssuffering,  ami  lier  aniiy  oi'  Bishops  and  other 
clergy  and  baptized  lay  people,  all  in  a  great  measure 
the  result  of  the  missionary  labors  of  the  faithful  in 
the  days  Ijefore  our  day.  The  Domestic  or  home  mis- 
sion work  of  the  American  Church  is  carried  on  by 
twenty-one  missionary  Bishops  with  about  1,13(» 
other  workers,  and  for  this  part  of  her  enterprise  the 
Church  gave  last  year  more  than  $762,000. 

We  should  have  a  wonderful  sight-seeing  tour,  if 
for  one  day  we  could  travel  with  the  sun,  and  look 
at  the  home  missions  of  the  American  Church.  We 
might  begin  our  tour  among  the  lovely  forests  and 
hills  of  Porto  Eico,  where  the  dark-eyed  Spanish- 
speaking  children  would  be  going  through  the  bright 
flowering  thickets  to  the  American  schools  and 
churches.  Then  we  should  fly  across  the  blue  sea- 
water  to  Florida,  to  see  the  colored  children  gathered 
in  the  schools,  and  the  suffering  Indians  going  from 
their  wretched  homes  in  the  Everglades  to  the  hospi- 
tal for  healing.  Then,  to  the  southern  hill  country, 
where,  from  many  lonely  mountain  cabins,  boys  and 
girls,  eager  to  learn,  walk  long  miles  to  our  schools 
and  Sunday  schools.  Then,  swiftly  toward  tlie  West, 
where  many  earnest  men  and  women  are  lovingly 
working,  sent  by  the  Church  to  Indian  reservations, 
dreary  mining  camps,  desolate  sage-brush  plains,  and 
widely-scattered  farm  homes  on  the  great  prairies. 

On  and  on  we  should  go,  across  snow-covered 
mountains,  to  sail  along  the  glittering  glacier-fringed 


110  SO.ME  MEMORY  DAYS 

shore  of  the  Pacific  northward,  to  see  our  little  round- 
faced  Alaskan  wards  and  the  white  and  Indian  pa- 
tients in  the  hospitals.  We  should  take  a  peep  at  our 
missionary  toiling  cheerily  at  lonely  Point  Hope,  and 
Bishop  Eowe  and  his  brave  helpers  ministering 
through  the  grim  Alaskan  winter,  and  making  the 
people  understand  ''that  they  are  for  the  Church,  the 
Church  is  for  the  people,  and  the  people  are  all  who 
fare  over  the  trail."  Then  we  sail  out  again  on  the 
Pacific,  this  time  to  visit  the  girls  in  the  Priory 
School  in  Honolulu  among  the  lovely  flowers,  and 
the  other  school  children,  native,  Chinese,  and  Jap- 
anese; then  on  again,  to  the  Philippines,  with  all  the 
varied  work  that  we  should  like  to  linger  over,  the 
work  among  the  English-speaking  people,  the  Chris- 
tian Filipinos,  the  Chinese,  and  the  pagans. 

fStill  travelling  on  with  the  sun,  we  should  come  to 
other  mission  fields  of  tlie  American  Church,  in  lands 
over  which  the  flag  of  the  great  Republic  does  not 
float,  in  districts  under  the  care  of  nine  missionary 
Bishops  and  hundreds  of  American  and  native  help- 
ers. In  China  we  might  see  our  brothers  and  sisters 
of  the  yellow  race  gathering  in  some  seventy-five 
places  of  worship  maintained  by  the  American 
Church.  We  should  like  to  linger  in  the  strange 
walled  cities  with  their  thronging  multitudes  of  peo- 
ple, so  different  in  face  and  dress  and  customs  from 
those  whom  we  generally  see;  we  should  like  to  look 
at  the  earnest  young  men  of  Boone  College  and  St. 


liisiioi-  liOMNi:.  sit. 

I  I'iiii r    r.islKjp    ill    ( 'liiii.-i. 


I'.ISIIOI'   CIIAWIXG    MOOUK    WILLIAMS 
Ll'ionuer  Hisliop  in   Japan. J 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  111 

John's  Universit}^  students  of  arts  and  science,  of 
medicine  and  of  theology ;  and  the  girls  of  St.  Mary's 
Hall,  learning  to  love  study  so  well  that  some  of  them 
are  looking  forward  to  further  study  in  America ;  and 
the  happy  little  ones  in  St.  Mary's  Orphanage;  and 
the  thoughtful  women  in  the  Church  Training 
schools,  studying  the  Bible  and  Prayer  Book  that  they 
may  in  turn  teach  these  to  their  own  people.  We 
should  like  to  see  the  nearly  25,000  people  who  in  a 
year  go  for  health  and  healing  to  St.  Luke's  Hospital, 
and  the  other  thousands  at  St.  Elizabeth's,  St.  Peter's, 
St.  James',  the  Elizabeth  Bunn,  and  the  various  dis- 
pensaries. 

In  Japan,  with  its  millions  ol  earnest,  intelligent 
people,  we  should  find  other  groups  of  schools  and 
hospitals;  the  Divinity  school  in  Tokyo,  St.  Paul's 
College,  St.  Margaret's,  St.  Agnes',  and  the  other 
schools,  and  Holy  Trinity  Orphanage.  We  should 
see  Trinity  Cathedral,  and  some  eighty-seven  places 
where  God  is  worshipped  in  the  prayers  and  praises 
of  the  Prayer  Book  which  we  love;  and  we  should 
see  thousands  of  sick  skilfully  cared  for  in  another 
St.  Luke's  Hospital,  and  other  tliousands  of  out-pa- 
tients, and  still  other  thousands  cared  for  at  St.  Bar- 
nabas' and  St.  Peter's.  And  we  should  see  the  cate- 
chists  and  Bible-women  going  from  house  and  house 
among  the  people,  and  teaching  them,  one  by  one. 

Then,  travelling  over  tlic  vast  distances  of  Asia 
and  the  lionrt  of  tlic  dnvk  conliiioiit.  we  slunild  come 


112  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

to  the  Cape  Palmas  district,  where  the  African  boj^s 
and  girls  are  gathered  in  schools,  and  where  the  dark- 
skinned  men  and  women  are  humbly  worshipping 
God  and  serving  Him  in  our  sixt3'-one  mission  sta- 
tions; while  the  children  of  some  whom  our  earliest 
missionaries  found  in  darkest  heathenism  and  bar- 
barism are  teaching  Christ  to  their  own  people.  Sail- 
ing away  from  Africa  across  the  xVtlantic,  we  should 
come  to  other  African  children  in  the  Sunday  schools 
and  churches  of  Haiti.  And  then  we  should  see  Cuba 
with  its  patient,  persevering  missionaries  minister- 
ing to  English-speaking,  French-speaking,  and  Span- 
ish-speaking congregations.  Still  travelling  Avest,  Ave 
should  come  again  to  America,  and  see  the  sixty-one 
congregations  in  care  of  the  Church  in  Mexico,  and 
the  beginning  work  of  the  Church  in  the  Panama 
Canal  Zone ;  and  soutli  of  the  equator,  Ave  should  find 
the  great  mission  field  of  Brazil,  Avith  its  numerous 
mission  stations,  its  theological  school,  and  its  beau- 
tiful churches  built  in  a  large  part  by  the  people  of 
the  land.  For  in  all  these  foreign  lands  the  Ameri- 
can Church  is  trying  to  plant  the  seed  of  the  old 
Faith  and  to  bring  the  different  peoples  Avithiu  tlie 
sound  of  the  Good  Shepherd's  voice. 

We  may  not  thus  travel  with  the  sun  to  see  the 
Church  at  Avork  in  many  lands,  Itut  from  month  to 
month,  in  Tlie  Spirit  of  Missions  and  in  the  Church 
press,  we  really  do  see  true  ]:)ictures  of  that  work- 
drawn  l)y  the  pens  of  tlio  ri)issi(Mi  woi-kcrs.  and  failli- 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  113 

fully  printed  by  the  suii  that  daily  visits  every  part 
of  the  missionary  field.  We  see  also  pictures  of 
places  where  work  ought  to  be  done,  but  is  not  yet; 
and  as  we  see  these,  we  seem  to  hear  the  pleading- 
call  that  our  Missionary  Bishops  in  the  home  and 
foreign  fields  are  always  hearing  and  repeating  to  us, 
the  call  of  many  nations,  saying  by  their  needs, 
"Come,  help  us  also;  for  we  are  yours,  and  you  are 
Gods." 

To  the  General  Convention  of  1880  in  Xew  York 
came  the  Missionary  Bishops  from  the  home  and 
foreign  fields  and  the  Bishops  of  the  western  dibceses 
into  which  people  from  many  foreign  lands  were 
pouring,  and  the  Church,  stirred  by  the  appeals  of 
these  devoted  and  enthusiastic  men,  awoke  to  a 
greater  desire  to  become  the  Church  of  the  people,  and 
entered  with  greater  vigor  into  the  work  of  missions 
and  so  became  a  more  earnestly  living  and  giving 
Church,  and  began  to  grow  in  every  way  more  rap- 
idly, with  added  numbers,  greater  charities,  and 
deeper  spiritual  life. 

The  General  Cou\cntion  of  I880,  marking  the 
end  of  the  hundred  years  of  laying  the  foundations 
of  the  Church  in  America,  met  in  old  Christ  Church. 
Philadelphia,  where  the  General  Convention  first  took 
form,  where  the  Eev.  George  Keith,  the  first  mission- 
ary of  the  S.  P.  G.,  preached  again  and  again,  draw- 
ing back  many  to  the  old  Faith,  where  the  nolilc 
^Vashington    wt)i'slii[)|KMl.     nnd     (he     siiiiitly     r)isli(i[i 


114  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

White  was  baptized  and  ministered  as  priest  and 
Bishop.  To  that  Convention  the  venerable  Bishop 
Clark,  of  Rhode  Island,  told  the  thrilling  history  of 
the  Church  in  America,  and  reminded  the  people 
that  this  Chnrch,  linked  to  the  past  b}^  ties  that  can 
never  be  broken  and  in  full  sympathy  with  the  pres- 
ent, was  called  to  do  a  greater  work  than  ever  before 
in  this  land  and  in  other  lands  in  the  century  to 
come,  this  twentieth  century  of  ours. 

The  Church  whose  foundations  were  laid  by  the 
few  Englishmen  who  knelt  before  God  in  the  James- 
town forest,  now  covers  a  territory  more  than  double 
the  size  of  the  great  Roman  Empire,  and  the  faithful 
members  of  that  Church  have  it  for  their  duty  and 
joy  to  hand  on  to  ages  to  come  the  gifts  that,  given 
to  them,  have  made  the  Church  in  America  what  she 
is  to-day.  Even  so  will  our  dear  Church  remain  a 
Living  Church,  for  it  is  a  law  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  that  power  must  not  spend  itself  within,  but 
must  bear  fruit  without;  the  fountain  upspringing 
sends  its  pure,  sparkling  water  away  in  a  clear  stream 
to  bless  other  lands.  So  it  has  always  been  in  the 
Church,  which,  like  her  Divine  Master,  has  gone 
abroad,  teaching  the  ignorant,  healing  the  sick,  and 
calling  strangers  and  wanderers  home  to  God ;  ahvays 
praying  Him  to  send  forth  laborers  into  His  harvest, 
and  waiting  on  Him  while  He  gives  wisdom  and 
courage  nnrl  tlie  gift  of  tlie  Holy  Sjiirit.  tlmt  most  ex- 


OF  THE  CHURCH  IN  AMERICA  115 

cellent  gift  of  love  which  lias  inspired  her  to  become 
a  Missionary  Church. 

In  a  special  way,  this  Church  is  fitted  for  her 
high  calling  to  go  into  all  lands,  since  she  is  quite 
separated  from  the  state,  and  free  to  send  out  Bishops 
at  need,  while  she  has  in  her  membership  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  with  its  energy  and  that  love  of  adventure 
which  longs  to  go  out  into  all  quarters  of  the  world. 
And  because  of  this  high  station  of  the  Church  in 
America,  she  has  high  responsibility,  and  is  called  to 
noble  self-sacrifice  and  labor.  "We  are  in  trust  of 
the  Gospel  for  the  people  of  the  many  nations  at 
our  doors  and  in  other  lands:  the  white  man,  the 
black  man,  the  red  man,  the  yellow  man,  the  brown 
man;  for  nothing  is  foreign  to  the  Church  that  be- 
longs to  humanity,  and  that  carries  on  the  work  of 
Christ  who  lived  in  the  world  and  worked  for  the 
world.  Prayers  and  alms  and  lives  are  demanded 
without  limit  for  the  missionary  work  of  tlie  Ameri- 
can Church  which  she  sees  waiting  to  be  done,  as  she 
looks  from  Maine  to  Florida,  from  ^Mexico  to  Alaska, 
to  China,  Japan,  Africa,  South  America,  and  the 
Islands  of  t»e  sea ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  she  looks 
upward  and  hears  the  marching  orders  of  her  Cap- 
tain, and  the  Voice  from  Heaven,  saying,  "Go  for- 
ward." 

Is  it  not  a  glorious  vocation — this  of  the  apos- 
tolic Church  in  America,  and  of  all  her  children  ; 
lliis  (-jtll  to  go  on  nnd  on.  Icadiiii;'  (he  nations  of  the 


116  SOME  MEMORY  DAYS 

world  to  listen  to  and  obey  the  voice  of  the  Good 
Shepherd;  to  go  on  and  on,  until  the  many  peoples 
shall  all  be  the  people  of  God  and  of  His  Chris-t,  and 
the  Church  Militant  of  the  earth  resting  from  her 
labors,  shall  be  the  Church  Triumphant  in  the  beauty 
of  holiness,  still  forevermore  serving  her  Lord  and 
her  God? 


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